


Liberty or Possessions

by Zarfe



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Arizona Coyotes, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-02-24 01:34:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 110,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2563400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarfe/pseuds/Zarfe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Hockey Big Bang 2014<br/>UPDATED TUESDAYS AND FRIDAYS</p><p>Oliver Ekman-Larsson wakes up in dystopia and must find a way to survive when all of his memories prove false. While facing a deranged and powerful man hunting him and his new companions, a world turned apocalyptic, and the fact that he seemed to have been killed 5 years prior, Oliver must seek a way to survive and find a reason for his memories of a simple life playing hockey.</p><p>Based off of NIN's Year Zero, many of the main points have been inlaid with the course of that story and the companion ARG, but some have been changed or repurposed for the sake of a story.</p><p>This is a completed work but will be uploaded a chapter at a time. See individual chapter notes for chapter-specific warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hyperpower!

**Author's Note:**

> **Chapter 1 Warnings: Violence, language, War Themes**
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> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
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> Mix done by the amazing Rae: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possession)
> 
> Song for Chapter 1 Hyperpower!:[Something From Nothing -Foo Fighters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_YlZ1JdcVk)

 

Cold cement greeted Oliver when he woke. Cold, cracked, and empty cement. His head swam, and black patches hovered in ever changing patterns just behind his eyes. It was the deep blackness that no amount of blinking would clear, so Oliver decided to compromise by just keeping his eyes shut. He tried to remember where he could be instead of looking around, through the black, for clues. Last thing he could say with certainty was that he had been in Glendale in a game. Had they won? Had he gotten massively drunk and mugged? He could not place an answer to either of those questions. Pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes with force, Oliver groaned and listened to it echo back off the deserted street. It was way too cold to be Glendale, he figured.

 

Wrapping his arms around himself, Oliver tried to open his eyes again. There was a dull ache behind them now, but the shadows had cleared somewhat and that was the first reassuring thing Oliver experienced. He looked around again and tried to figure out exactly where he was. There was very little detail of the street since it was as dark as the night could get, but what he could gather was that it was some sort of residential neighborhood. Or, more correctly, it had been residential at some point in time, but it looked long since abandoned: clustered together and decaying. What Oliver knew, though, was that he would not find any help there, even if there were people in the darkened buildings. What he had to find was somewhere more friendly. Somewhere where someone would call the cops and get him home. He wondered where he could find that.

 

Standing was a bit more of a labored chore than usual. He felt stiff and worn down. Not hurt per se, but like he had not moved in days. He legs felt unsure, but could support him well enough to manage a stagger. Despite generally feeling like a used chew toy, Oliver assessed that he was otherwise undamaged and could wander off in a direction he chose purely by the way the lights reflected off the overcast sky. He assumed light pollution meant a city and, therefore, meant cops that could get him back home.

 

Staggered steps eventually returned to a relatively normal walking pattern. Moving was helping, but the cold had still chosen to work against him. He kept his hands tucked into his armpits and shivered, but continued to walk. His previous resolve to get to the source of light started to wane after awhile though, and Oliver began contemplating holding up in a building until daylight. At least he would not be in the elements, he reasoned. He began to assess the houses more, watching them and attempting to guess if anyone could actually live in them, seeing as though all looked ready to topple. Nature had not yet begun to creep back into the neighborhood, but Oliver got the distinct feeling that he was utterly alone.

 

" _Sucks_ ," He mumbled in English, shivering violently once and clamping his teeth tight. His breath came out in clouds, blurring his view at times, and the previous notion of finding a place to weather the night suddenly became the biggest thought in Oliver's mind. He was so consumed by it that he had not even felt the tripwire pull against his jeans and pop loose. He did, however, feel the violent explosion that flung him from his feet and hard against the cement once more.

 

Worn did not even begin to describe Oliver after that. He hurt, confusion not having been bad enough, but the explosion also added a heavy dose of panic and instinct into his system. Sadly instinct had nothing to really go on. He heard nothing through the harsh ringing in his ears, and could feel nothing but pain and the solid and fast beating of his own heart. Instinct and panic told him to run, and with nothing else to offer a different suggestion, or even an objection, Oliver did just that. It hurt, struggling to his feet and running before he was even upright. It was hindered even more by not being able to tell which way gravity was holding him to the earth. Still his instinct made him run; panic made him trip over himself and grab anything he could for support.

 

A thick smoke had begun to choke the air and Oliver's panting worked against him as he breathed it in. It burned, and what was a bad situation exponentially worsened. He had not been sure he was actually seeing before, with the fear clogging up any long-term recollection, but he knew within a few seconds that he physically could not see anymore. He coughed, trying to clear the smoke that was in his lungs, but another breath drew more in, and there was no way to escape it. Gasping and struggling, Oliver tried covering his mouth to fend off the ache his lungs were feeding to the rest of his body, but it did almost nothing; like Kevlar in a knife fight. He felt he could not beat it, but adrenaline and his personal regard for his own life caused him to still fight to escape. It had seemed like miles, but it had not been more than a few dozen feet before Oliver was roughly jerked to his side again. It had not been from an explosion, though, but from a pull.

 

Oliver was thrown to the floor by the momentum. He struggled onto his side; coughing so hard he thought he would retch. His eyes burned and watered, and his body was a portrait of agony. His hearing had started to return, but was still muffled heavily by his own panicked heartbeat. Vaguely, past the thrumming in his ears he could hear a door closing and voices. There were also loud, rather rapid, pops. His brain refused to supply what those were, what with everything else going on inside.

 

Heavy footfalls approached, and Oliver squinted up, trying to see who was nearing him. He wished he had not a moment later because what he saw did little to calm his nerves. It was a man, definitely, but he was clad in black clothing and his face was hidden behind a gas mask. Oliver knew it was for function, not fashion, what with the way his lungs ached and still cried for fresh air that was generally around him. There were traces of the smoke, some that had followed him into the building, and some that seeped its way through cracks in the walls and windows, but nothing compared to the thick wall that had been outside.

 

" _Who--_?" Oliver started, but he then placed the pops he had been hearing. It was not hard when he had taken notice of the gun slung over the man's shoulder. Oliver did not hesitate to lock up again, instinct trying to push its way into the situation once more. It had not stopped telling him to run. The man, however, did not seem to have the same urge because he walked calmly across the room, boots connecting with the ground heavily enough that Oliver could feel it in the floorboards. He approached a table that sat unsurely on three and a half legs, the broken one being supported by a large crate that made the table tip precariously. On top of it were a few more crates, all plastic and appearing to be industrial in nature. Oliver had no mental ability to formulate questions such as what was going on, who the man was, or what the hell was in the boxes that seemed so sinister. Instead he could only manage to gape stupidly as the man pulled another gas mask out of a box and threw it to Oliver. He caught it, but it was awkward and delayed, and even when he had it in his hands he just stared at it. The man gave a few seconds before he spoke in English.

 

" _If you don't want your lungs burned out, I would suggest you put that on_." It took another few seconds for that threat to sink into Oliver's already fear-driven mind. He went into motion after that, hurriedly shoving himself into the foreign piece of equipment. It had been opened up, so his unskilled hands fought to hold it and strap it on. The man had shifted, obviously watching Oliver, though his weary expression was hidden behind his own mask. Finally assessing that Oliver was entirely clueless about how to put on the equipment, he stepped forward and roughly secured it to the young man's face. Oliver winced but only slightly protested out of reflex, knowing that the rough rubber and plastic mask would probably save his life. He took a couple experimental breaths through the filter and found that it was not entirely that hard to breathe through.

 

" _Thanks_ ," he muttered, hoping it was loud enough to be heard past all the plastic. It apparently was because the man grunted out something that was definitely not a you're welcome, and shifted his gun from around his shoulder to in his hands. It was unlikely that he would kill Oliver after effectively saving his life, but the menacing weapon made him anxious regardless. The gunfire from the floor above reminded Oliver this was not a place he should be, and though the man's kindness had been his saving grace, it did not mean that it could not stop at any point.

 

" _Stick with me, and we'll get you back to your family. Now get up._ " Oliver struggled to comply as quickly as he could, but he had pressing questions that he fully intended on asking the man. As he opened his mouth to ask those questions, heavy footsteps clomped down the stairs. Oliver had to turn since the goggles cut off his peripheral vision, but saw another black-clothed figure hurrying down to their floor, feet skidding just slightly on the dust that clung in sheets to the wooden planks.

 

"Who the fuck is that?" Came a distinctly female voice, speaking fluent and rapid Swedish. Oliver lit up since it was the first time he felt comfortable in the slightest since he had woken up. Of course it was nonsense that he felt comfortable, since the woman also held an assault riffle and approached him and the man quickly. Excited, Oliver forgot all about the nervousness and rushed to speak.

 

"My name is…" He started in Swedish, but the man cut him off rudely.

 

"It's the civilian that was on the street." He said, grabbing a hold of Oliver's arm and pulling him to his feet. "We're going to give him an escort out." The man also spoke fluent Swedish, but that did not seem to be a surprise to anyone but Oliver who still could only smile in relief behind his mask. Swedish meant home, which meant he could see his parents who could possibly tell him what was going on.

 

"Swedish speaker?" The woman asked in Swedish, "One of us?"

 

"No," The man replied simply, looking away from Oliver to regard her. "None of our boys are dumb enough to wander through the outer section unarmed." Oliver flared. There was no reason to think that just because he spoke Swedish that he was one of whatever group these people were who dressed all in black and carried guns. Also, it was hardly his fault that he had woken up on a deserted street and simply tried to find someone to get him out of there. They acted like he was at fault for walking into a firefight that he had not known would be going on.

 

"I'm not dumb!" Oliver insisted rather loudly, turning on the man who had been helping him thus far. "I'm just lost!"

 

"Obviously," The man countered, walking to the stairs and shouting up that they were heading out. "And we're going to get you un-lost. Did you see Jamison? He better be ready because this position is far too compromised now." The man had ended his words by switching the focus from Oliver to the woman, and what ended everything was a bullet finding its way through the boarded up window to bury itself in the opposite wall. The man casually turned his head and looked at the hole in the drywall.

 

"Very compromised I'd say," The woman quipped, moving back to the stairs and taking three up, shouting louder than the man did to whomever was up there. "And I didn't see him, but he better be ready, or dead. Asses out in two!" She told them, moving to the table after men replied in affirmatives from upstairs. She opened a different crate than the man had, pulling out oval objects. Two were tossed to the man that had pulled Oliver off the street. Two were clipped to her belt where Oliver could get a good look at them. They were grenades; rather large for what Oliver had thought they would look like, but it was another very solid reminder that he was somewhere he really did not want to be. The people that had saved him were more than likely going to kill other people. There was a very strict moral issue there, but what trumped that was Oliver’s want to be home and safe. If that meant staying with what he hoped would be the winning team, then that was what he had to do.

 

A few of the grenades were lobbed to the upper floor, clicking loudly against the wood where they landed, but the pins had not been pulled. He could hear boots up there, probably from whoever had been firing from that perch. They were probably grabbing the grenades, probably arming them. Oliver could almost imagine it.

 

"What's going to happen," The man started, his tone even as he addressed Oliver, "Is we're going to make a left out of the door. Regardless of what you see or hear, I want you to stay with me. As long as you keep up, we'll get you home." Oliver nodded, but he was grimacing behind his mask. He was scared and miserable, and though the words struck a chord and told Oliver that they really were going to try their best to get him out of there alive, there was also much out of their control.

 

The man grabbed another grenade out of the box and pulled the pin. He and the woman moved toward the door he had indicated, calling out as if to get a roll call. Two men from upstairs shouted back, the woman nodded, all signaling that they were ready to get out of there. She opened the door, he threw the grenade, and she shut the door again. The blast that came several seconds later was quickly followed by another one and the running footsteps of those from upstairs hurrying down.

 

"Now!" The man called, and the woman threw the door open again. It only took Oliver a moment to hurry after them. He was sandwiched perfectly between the woman and one of the men from upstairs, keeping silent. He wanted to ask questions; he wanted to know whom they were running from and where they were running. He wanted to know names, to see faces, but most of all he wanted to live, and that seemed like something to shut up for.

 

Though the grenades kicked up smoke and debris, their retreat path had obviously been predicted. Bullets pinged after them, and the distance of the gun shots told Oliver all he needed to know to hurry up. Still, he glanced over his shoulder and regretted it. Through the smoke Oliver saw men in far heavier armor than any of them wore, storming after them. They also wore gas masks and the goggles glowed a menacing green. He could only assume whatever made them glow was bad news for the group. He turned back around just in time to be thrown against the wall to his right by a very solid and heavy explosion. The building they had been retreating from blew outward and a good chunk of the debris landed in the small alley they were evacuating down. He heard screams and shouts from their pursuers, some cut off quickly in what Oliver could only assume were violent deaths, but the group continued to move.

 

Those that made it past the explosion followed with a blind hate. Their shots became more erratic and frequent, and Oliver stayed on the heels of the woman, head low and arms over himself as if that would protect him. The men behind him peeled away at some point, probably holding off their pursuers to allow the others a clear escape. It was almost like Oliver could feel their sudden disappearance because he turned again, just before the woman grabbed a hold of his arm and swung him into another narrow alleyway.

 

The smoke cleared as they proceeded, but the dark was little improvement. Oliver stumbled a few times over obstacles he could not see, even when he turned to glance behind him. His breath came quick and shallow from fear, but he stayed on the lead man's heels, followed closely by the woman. She was the one that directed him again, pulling him to a hard stop right before he ran into the man leading their group.

 

"Down," She told him, pulling him toward the ground with her. They all squatted against a wall, and the man carefully poked his head out, looking both ways down the street they had come to a T at.

 

"The others…?" Oliver started, and the woman shushed him. Past the beating of his heart in his ears, Oliver could distinctly hear gunfire from where they had run from. It did not sound remarkably close, but the echoing on the deserted streets made it very difficult to get any actual understanding of how far away it was.

 

"They will be fine, and are no concern of yours," She responded a few moments later, shifting to get closer to the other man. "Not exactly the normal escape route," She told him just loud enough that Oliver could barely hear her.

 

"Much didn't go to plan," He responded, pointing somewhere to his right. "That'll be our best bet. Third left, and first right and we'll be right behind the fourth tunnel. Then there's just the hope that they don't know about it and we can get in."

 

"Sniper posts here? Pretty damn open, and if they had this many so close to our staging house, my guess is they know at least two of our exits. They're probably covering most of the routes to them." The man pointed up to his left, signaling out buildings Oliver could not see from his perched crouch against the wall. He had enough of a hard time concentrating on breathing, focusing on getting his breath back for the inevitable next sprint, than following their conversation.

 

The woman was astute, following the lingo that the man spoke with a practiced ease. She signaled as well, pointing out where she would have posted snipers if she were the enemy. Next they began to explore just where they would go from there. The woman suggested back tracking, moving over a few blocks and closer to a different escape route, but the man told her no, that that would not work.

 

"If they have this guarded, then that means that they could have the other alleyways closed off fully. We got this far on this route, so we might as well push ahead." The woman held up her hands in mock surrender before shifting to slide the rifle back in front of her. She turned her head to look at Oliver, and though he could not see her face, he knew that her attention was fully on him.

 

"Hanging in there, _Civ_? Ready to go again?" She asked. Oliver nodded slowly, raising himself up to a slightly bent stance. The other two members of the team were almost at their full heights and far closer to the open of the street, but he still felt hesitant to put himself out there.

 

"I really would rather be home." Oliver replied weakly. The woman laughed lightly, clapping Oliver on the shoulder, as she pulled him closer.

 

"Wouldn't we all, kid. But to get you there, we gotta do this first, so are you ready?" This time Oliver nodded, and moved with her toward the edge. "We're going to go against this building to the right, and when you see one of us go out toward the street, you follow. Stay low and move fast. About fifty yards down there is another street that runs parallel to this one. We're planning on going into that one. If one of us tells you not to go into it, then you keep running until you get to one we okay. Do you understand me?" Oliver told her that he did, that he got it, but there was still lingering doubt in his mind. What if, he wondered, one of his guards got shot down and he had to loiter around in the main street until one of them went in? What if they had to stay out there and just got picked off by the snipers that very well could have been out there just waiting for them? Instead of asking, Oliver just drew in more labored breaths and hoped to god his worries were unwarranted.

 

"Alright, _Chief_ , let's do this. I'll lead, you just do what you do." The woman told the other man. The man nodded along with her, getting his gun at the ready as well. The plan became evident when they started moving. The man popped out and ran to the left, the woman rushing out a second later, with Oliver in tow, to the right. The bullets started moments after, pinging down seemingly everywhere, but the shots were concentrated on the man. He did not hesitate to fire back. Every time a muzzle blast caught his eye, he lobbed a few bullets into the building. As for Oliver, he could not watch as he was running like he had never done before. There was something very different between doing sprints, and running for one's life and Oliver had felt it immediately. He desperately wanted to be anywhere else, but it could have been much worse if the woman had been shot, if she had dropped to the ground dead in front of him.

 

She moved fast, and Oliver stayed on her heels. Just as she had said, there was another street a little down the way. As they approached, the woman turned to cover them, gun held up as she shot back toward the fray. Oliver started to turn as well, wanting to see if they were being chased, but as he did, the woman grabbed his shoulder and all but threw him into the thin street. As he fell, so did she, but her with a cry. Oliver did not see the bullet hit her, but he knew that she had been shot. Her screaming changed from just noise to loud swearing, and Oliver moved before he thought. He ran back out into the open, grabbing the woman around each shoulder to try and drag her to safety. She howled in pain, but Oliver could not think about another way to get her safe.

 

As Oliver dragged the woman, the man ran toward them. He continued to shoot, and still held his assault rifle out in one hand as he grabbed a hold of Oliver's arm, throwing him toward the side street again. He was strong and, much like how the woman had thrown him, Oliver stumbled into the safety of the alleyway once more. The man took over Oliver's attempted rescue, not just grabbing the woman as the younger man had, but by taking a hold of one of her hands in order to pull her to her feet and hurriedly walk her into the alley.

 

"We can't stay," Oliver heard the man tell the woman as he stripped her of her gun and held it out toward Oliver. Oliver did not grab it right away until the man barked at him to do so. Still he held it like it could blow up at any moment, like it was poison. He knew that neither of those things were true, but that did not make holding the gun any less foreign. He had never used an assault rifle before, even during some of their team bonding outings. He had just always been nervous of them, and at that moment, where knowing how to shoot it could make the difference between life and death, Oliver felt even more frightened.

 

"Woulda been fine if someone hadn't tried to tear my shoulder the rest of the way open," The woman hissed, eyeing Oliver with contempt. He had not even needed to see her face to know that he had screwed up, and when she grabbed at her right shoulder he knew exactly much of a mistake he had made. He had grabbed her precisely on her injury, possibly having made it worse. He shook with the adrenaline that was much more potent than any hockey game, than any interview he had ever given. It only made him feel worse.

 

"I didn't know that she was shot in the shoulder!" Oliver hollered incredulously, eyes narrowed and full of loathing toward the woman that scorned his attempt at helping save her life. The man diffused the situation unkindly as he grabbed the woman's unhurt arm and pulled her back up to her feet, giving her a nudge before putting Oliver in line right behind her. The man followed them both as they moved down the side street, keeping an eye over his own shoulder to ensure that whomever remained alive on the wide avenue did not try to gank them as they moved.

 

"How many?" The woman grumbled after a minute, taking up scouting point since the only actual soldier left capable was the man who had to play both leader and protector.

 

"Twelve," He responded in monotone, almost absently, as he scanned all around them.

 

"Out of?" She whispered back, holding her shoulder tight, as if it would help stop either the pain or the oozing blood. Oliver could hear the light scoff in his voice, a huff of a laugh that was pretty humorless.

 

"Out of twelve, as far as I could tell." That made the woman laugh, a light and dry tone as well. Oliver had a pretty good idea of what they were talking about, but he also hoped that he was entirely wrong. Twelve out of twelve meant that the man had killed twelve men, but that also meant that there had been twelve men there to stop them. He wondered how many soldiers were usually sent out to kill a group of what appeared to be anarchists. He assumed that twelve would have been normally overkill. The man had proved instead that it had not been enough.

 

"Still looking at our ass, though." She observed matter-of-factly.

 

"Can never be too safe." The man moved passed Oliver and to the woman, grabbing her undamaged arm again to pull her into another alley. Oliver honestly had no idea where they had been, how they had gotten to where they were, and he was more than impressed that the two with him actually seemed to know the layout of the ghost town. It was like a poorly mapped out city all around them, with almost no distinguishing landmarks except for buildings with different levels decay and structural integrity, and yet they knew the way to wherever they needed to go to be safe, even when pursued by murderous men with guns and obvious control of the area.

 

"Let me take a look," The man said, not immediately doing just that. Instead he moved to Oliver. He helped Oliver raise the gun, showed him how to hold it without a word. He almost seemed to be critiquing Oliver's grip, and though that normally would have annoyed Oliver, he was way too shaken to fight against him. He let the silent lesson be taught, holding the grips tight and desperate.

 

"Don't bother aiming. If they come down that street, just pull the trigger and point right down the middle." It must have been obvious that Oliver knew nothing about those types of weapons, because it was the simplest instruction, and basically was only for Oliver not to shoot any of them by accident, and to not lose his grip from the recoil. He nodded, letting out a shaky breath that momentarily fogged his mask. Oliver could feel the sweat on his skin, especially where the plastic and rubber pressed tight against his face, but had no way of cleaning it.

 

The man moved back to the woman after a solid pat on Oliver's shoulder, undoing his own coat to rip off a strip of his shirt. It was a field tourniquet, shoddy at best but good enough for the supplies at their disposal. The woman seemed tough, simply gritting her teeth and moaning just a little from the pain that Oliver figured had to be terrible. He could only watch for a few seconds before he felt bile rise in his stomach and had to turn away, swallowing hard as he concentrated on defending their route and tried to blank out the actions just behind him. He had managed to do so so completely that when the man's hand landed on his shoulder, Oliver accidentally squeezed the trigger. Only three bullets ejected from the gun before the man disarmed Oliver who looked at him with wide and scared eyes. The man seemed indifferent.

 

"You're aim's low. Keep it up and your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot." The man said nonchalantly almost as if he were reading from a book.

 

"You scared me!" Oliver shot back, defensive. He was surprised when the man shifted the gun back into Oliver's grip, taking his time to make sure Oliver had a proper hold on it again.

 

"I know, and you wasted three bullets. But you learned a lesson, so keep your aim up when you're prepared to fire, and keep your finger off the trigger until you are about to fire. That one's yours, at least until we get you safe, so try not to shoot either of us." Oliver's anger subsided, realizing that, for once, the man was actually trying to be nice to him. It had seemed that the whole time the man merely accepted Oliver's presence as a glitch in the plan that they just had to deal with. At that moment, though, he was being treated as one of them. Sure, an untrained, scared, and miserable one of them, but he had passed some sort of test that made him at least garter a little respect. The little bit of respect that meant that they trusted him not to turn the gun on them.

 

"Where next?" Oliver asked after a few seconds of silence, and the man pulled his hand away, gesturing with his own gun for Oliver to walk in front of him. It felt strangely like a threat, but with the woman taking point again, Oliver knew that the man would not chance shooting at him.

 

"Just follow her, and if anyone tries to charge us, take them out. Besides that, don't worry about where we're going or what we're doing." The moment had obviously passed, and it was back to business. If the woman had not been hurt, and if they were not literally running for their lives, Oliver knew he never would have been given the gun one-oh-one he had received. He was only useful so long as they made it out alive, and that actually made Oliver feel better about the situation. They would dump him as soon as they were safe, which meant that he could find his family and hopefully find his way back to his team and his job.

 

They were surprisingly safe for several blocks, not having to cross any more open avenues, but still the woman scouted every street merger and peaked around every corner. It was obvious that she felt naked without her gun, but it would have been a bad idea to arm her again with the wound in her shoulder. Occasionally she hissed or pressed her bloody palm to the wound, but she soldiered on. The man never once asked how she was, and that just seemed the way in which they dealt with things. Oliver worried about her, of course, but he followed their lead and remained silent as they worked their way through seemingly endless sections of buildings, all vacant and decrepit like the street Oliver had woken up on.

 

Just as the trio began to cross from one alleyway to the next, there was a flurry of activity. Bullets rained down from above, and the woman screamed for them to run. The angle was far too steep for the man to return fire, and Oliver could do nothing through the panic of another attack. Apparently the opposing soldiers had not known which street they would come down because when those on the ground began running after them, they were a couple blocks away. Still the group ran, the woman dodging in and out of alcoves as they hurried away from the soldiers shooting down from the three-story building they had just passed.

 

Oliver never stopped running; passing the woman who he realized too late had stopped. Just as he noticed that he was in the front of the queue and began to slow, the man caught him by the arm, swinging him around until he could look at Oliver's wide and scared eyes through the goggles of the mask.

 

"Get in there," The man told him, shouting as he shoved Oliver toward a nondescript house that stood not far from them. Oliver did not need to be told twice as he ran for the house. He did not see the woman pull the grenades from her belt, did not witness her throw them back toward the pursuing mob of armed men with as much strength as she could, but he did feel the effects as one exploded, followed by the other seconds later. He did not see the sides of buildings crumble, but he felt them, though none of it resonated in him in anything other way than the primal need to run once again, and a slight shaking of the ground. Closer gunfire signaled the man returning fire. Besides the initial ambush, they were also flanked from a block on either side of the street that the house Oliver fled into stood. The man lobbed shots, covering the woman's retreat into the house, followed by his own. He used his two grenades as well, but to little effect. They did not topple any buildings, and though it wounded some of the soldiers, others pushed on toward their escape.

 

The woman slammed against the far wall, ripping open a door that lead down to the cellar. She screamed for Oliver to follow and he did, self-preservation trumping any worry he had for the man that had yet to join them in the building. Once down the stairs, the woman flipped open a metal panel, bloodied fingers hurriedly pushing in a code. The gun shook in Oliver's hands, heavy and useless. He wanted to drop it, to push past the door that was obviously run by the panel, and continue running for his life. He did not like the moments of waiting for the heavy door to slide open.

 

It had hardly opened far enough for Oliver to fit through before the woman was shoving him in. He did not run, though, but turned to help her in as well. There was a small display just inside the door, red numbers counting down from ten. It was a timed door, and it clicked fully open with five seconds remaining, and began closing right after.

 

"Where is he?" Oliver practically begged the woman who grabbed his shoulder and roughly dragged him away from the door. He took her silence as resignation, so he struggled out of her grip, hurrying toward the already shutting door. The timer only had a few seconds left when the man appeared on the stairs, squeezing through the door and pushing Oliver back.

 

"Keep going!" He called out to them, getting his own stride back within a second to run down the tunnel. Oliver followed after, longer legs giving him more momentum. The door had sealed and there were only a few seconds of silence for Oliver to wonder just why they were running if they were safe behind thick metal. Then the entire tunnel shook with one final and extreme explosion. They all stumbled to the grime-slick floor as bits of debris fell from the ceiling around them. After that none of them moved. They all rested at various locations on the floor of the cement tunnel, breathing hard. The woman gingerly touched her wound, but the man was the first to move. He stood with labor, approaching Oliver first. He reached down and disentangled him from the gun, flicking the safety on before shouldering it along with his own gun. He patted Oliver once on the shoulder, both approving and sympathetic, before he turned back to the injured woman.

 

With one hand, the woman undid her mask, puling it off roughly and throwing it to the side. She breathed a deep breath, and Oliver thought she was beautiful. She was flushed, sweat-slicked, and wore no makeup, but she was the most welcomed sight Oliver ever needed to see. She had petite features that complimented her small frame, and hair that was butchered short and wild. The women that Oliver knew would have felt self-conscious over looking like that, but this woman was far beyond that.

 

"We're going to have to systematically blow this tunnel, _Chief_ ," She said, head rolling back against the dirty concrete as the man looked over her wound again. The man grunted something that seemed noncommittal as he worked, but it was obvious from a tactical standpoint that she was right. She knew as much, so she dropped the conversation, turning instead to look at Oliver who had not stopped staring at her yet. "And you can take the mask off now, _Civ._ You've gotta be dying in it." Truth be told, Oliver thought he was slowly suffocating in it. He had to pause his looks of wonderment at the woman in order to undo the straps the man had tightened for him, but he was glad he had decided to do so once it was off and he could drag in his own deep breath.

 

The tunnel was damp and smelled like mildew, but it was the best thing he had breathed in that day, as far as Oliver was concerned. They were resting, and therefore safe for the moment. He had not known how desperately he needed just that bit of time, and was thankful that the others seemed to have needed it as well. If they had just powered on, of course he would have followed, but it seemed like a blessing to just let the adrenaline and anxiety bleed from his system. He was safe, they were off the streets, and that meant that soon he would be able to get back to his family.

 

"It's just a short rest, _Civ_ ," The man began standing again to regard Oliver. "We have to get her back, and get you home." Oliver knew that, but he was thankful for it anyway. Resting the guns next to the woman, the man began to undo his own mask. Oliver wondered if he was the leader of whatever militia it was that Oliver got mixed up with, because he thought he could be a great leader. The man had gotten him out, after all, and catered to both their needs before his own comfort. The woman drank from a canteen in a few thirsty gulps before she held it out to Oliver. He smiled at her, thanked her, and took it, drinking as well. The water was cool like the outside air and he could not remember water tasting so good. It caught in his throat, though, and he coughed it out when the man finally removed his mask.

 

"Boeds?" He asked in shock and bewilderment, still coughing as he caught sight of the man's face. It was Mikkel Boedker, no mistaking that. He looked just like his best friend when he came off the ice, a little red yet still wide-eyed. After the one word left his mouth, the tunnel turned into a flurry of activity. The man yanked Oliver to his feet, canteen clattering against the wet concrete as it fell from Oliver's grasp. The hand around his throat was tight, but what alarmed Oliver more was the pistol held a mere six inches from his left eye.

 

"What did you say?" Mikkel hissed, eyes narrow and dangerous. Oliver struggled to find his voice, but when he did it came out strong yet desperate.

 

"Mikkel! Boeds! I-it's me! Oliver!" No recollection flashed on Mikkel's features, so Oliver continued to plead. "We play hockey together! We're best friends!"

 

"How do you know my name?" Mikkel asked, gruff again, as if Oliver's explanation was not sufficient. Oliver panicked, stuttered, and begged.

 

"P-please, Boeds! We know each other! D-don't… don't shoot me, please!" The woman stood, arming herself with one of the discarded assault rifles. She did not turn it against Oliver, though, but held it down and to her side.

 

" _Chief_ ," She began, only to get cut off by the man.

 

"How the fuck does he know my name, Maria?" He asked her, tone just as loud and hard as it had been when addressing Oliver.

 

"I don't know, _Chief_ , but shooting him here would be a bit rash. Let's get him back to Molious. Let's get some guys out with charges to clean this tunnel off the map before those fuckers get through that rubble." It took several seconds, ones that felt like an eternity to Oliver who could do nothing but stare down the barrel of the pistol. He shook with fear, which was very visible to the others. With one last snarl, Mikkel pulled his hand away from Oliver's throat, grabbing his shoulder and giving him a push down the tunnel instead. He kept his gun at level with Oliver's head level and barked an order for Oliver to start walking. The young man did, wondering just when he would get out of the frying pan.


	2. The Beginning of the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter 2 Warnings: Violence, language, Interrogations**  
>     
>    
> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possessions)  
> Song for Chapter 2 The Beginning of the End: [Silverfire - Empires](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1k765qGARo)

It took no more than five minutes in Molious' base for Oliver to be separated from Maria and Mikkel. He would have felt glad for that, what with the way that Mikkel never lowered his gun through the almost hour-long hike to the base, but the man that took over for them was more imposing than any weapon could be. He was big, both in height and width, and had not even needed to touch Oliver to make the young man not think about making a run for it.

 

The trip through the base was short, but Oliver could only compare what he saw to a sort of underground prison converted into a base of operations. It was generally barren, with cement walls and obvious patchwork done to fix problems or install whatever the group needed. He was not exactly privy to any sort of wiring or construction technicalities, but he could tell that what was done was slap-dash at best. Even bunks were laid in the open here and there.

 

Eventually he was forced into a room, one that looked strangely like a police interrogation room from a cop-drama show he would sometimes watch mid-day when contemplating a nap on the couch. It was far more interesting when he himself was sitting in one. The two-way mirror held the possibility of any number of onlookers, and though he tried to look highly unfazed under the harsh florescent lights, he could not help but fidget and feel sick.

 

Oliver's mind began to supply all sorts of nasty things about what his once saviors could do to him. He had recognized Mikkel, who obviously was Mikkel since he had responded to the name, albeit with anger and spite toward it. It was pretty easy to tell that Mikkel did not remember him, which made no sense because he had just seen him, had just played a game with him. Hell, he had passed to Mikkel for a goal two days prior. They were best friends, but what Oliver had seen, under the rage and confusion on Mikkel's face, was the void of recognition. He had no clue who Oliver was, and that alone scared him more than any room or uncertainty could.

 

Oliver remained sitting at the metal table in the room, the big man standing by the door with his arms crossed, looking ominous. Oliver was not small, nor was he weak, but he knew he would be at the losing end if he tried to fight or escape the man. Instead he remained there, glancing around from time to time. He was not entirely sure at what point of his day he had gotten lost, but he wore jeans that had done a number on his legs as he tripped and staggered during their escape from the gunfight. At the time he had not really felt any wounds, but the longer he sat and let the adrenaline leak from his system, the more he could feel the wear and tear on his body. His knees were skinned; not much, but just enough to sting as he shifted his legs and the denim rubbed against the flesh. He could feel bruises on them as well from the mysterious objects he had tripped over. The most annoying injuries, though, were on his hands that were scraped against rough and broken walls, along with the cracked cement from the first explosion that had signaled his entrance into hell. He rubbed and picked at them restlessly.

 

When Oliver became just uncomfortable enough to start contemplating if he could manage to outrun the entire militia and maybe magically find a way out of the base, the door opened. It had been silent in the room, minus Oliver's fidgeting and the man's breathing, so the sound of the handle turning cut through it completely. Oliver's head jerked over to watch Mikkel walk through the door, but any positive feeling he had toward seeing the man's familiar face crashed when Mikkel regarded him harshly. Hindsight told Oliver he should have just kept his mouth shut until he was home and with his family, but even having had Mikkel turn a gun on him did not stop that feeling of relief from trying to creep up again.

 

Mikkel did not speak as he entered the room. He gestured for the big man to leave, and he did so also without comment. When it was just the two of them, and the door securely closed, Mikkel approached. Aesthetically he was the Mikkel that Oliver remembered. He was a bit shorter than Oliver, just about 24 years old, with the same haircut as Mikkel usually had. Sure, he had a few more scars than Oliver remembered, like one just above his upper lip and another just under his left eye, but besides his surly attitude, aptness for war-games, and seemingly forgetting who Oliver was, he appeared to be the same Mikkel.

 

"Do you remember me?" Oliver asked, far meeker than normal. Mikkel laid a manila folder on the table and slid his chair in, pointedly not looking at Oliver until he had situated. When he was finally ready, he looked up and set Oliver with a hard and very unfriendly glare.

 

"No," Mikkel responded gruffly before flipping the folder open. "But this has been very enlightening. A soldier, huh?" His calloused finger tapped a few rhythmic beats against the papers. Oliver's brows scrunched together before his gaze dropped from Mikkel's face to the file that sat between them. A small photo in black and white of Oliver stared straight up, dead eyed and younger than Oliver's current age. It looked like Oliver, but just like with the Mikkel that sat in front of him, there was something wrong.

 

"I'm not…" Oliver began, but Mikkel cut him off.

 

"Oliver Ekman-Larsson, enrolled at age sixteen, killed in action age eighteen. By your birth date here you'd be, what, twenty-two now? Dead for a whole four years. AWOL or undercover, which is it?" As he spoke, his finger drew imaginary lines under what he considered the pertinent information. Oliver became mad, hands striking the table so Mikkel would look at him; would stop flipping pages and stop making an awkward clicking sound with his tongue as if chiding him.

 

"I'm not a soldier of… of anything!"

 

"Of the United States Army," Mikkel responded, louder than Oliver cried out. "Took over Sweden seven years ago and, what? Couldn't wait to join them? Sure, they can't take a fourteen year old. If they accepted them that young, it would be too hard to keep the support of a country under their military rule, but sixteen… God, you're all practically adults at that age, aren't you? Can't wait to sign up and kill some Chinese scumbags. Can't wait to fire at whatever your superior tells you is the enemy, even if it's your neighbor!" Some retort began to bubble up in Oliver's throat, but cut off abruptly when his fear driven mind actually managed to comprehend what Mikkel had said to him. The United States what? How long ago?

 

"I…" Oliver began again, drawing it out as he tried to formulate some sort of response. All he could think was that he had no idea what Mikkel was talking about, that he never was a soldier, let alone a soldier for the United States; that America had never taken any kind of rule over Sweden, especially not seven years ago, and that he sure as hell knew nothing about what Mikkel was talking about. He was a hockey player for god's sake, fashion designer and model on the side. He had never held an assault rifle before earlier that day, never enlisted in anything other than tournaments, and was most certainly out of his depth for not the first time in that twenty-four hour period.

 

"Usually the US Government removes all trace of a person if they go undercover," Mikkel began again, a more normal and level tone than before. "But maybe after their last few attempts at infiltrating Molious were concluded with their agents in parts, they're trying for a different tactic. That, or you really did go AWOL. Which is it, Larsson? It'll be a lot less painful if you tell me and make me believe you're not trying to pull one on us."

 

"I swear it's neither!" Oliver pleaded animatedly, leaning forward again to point at the file Mikkel had on the person with the same name and face as himself. "That's not me! It looks like me, yeah, but it isn't me! You were out there with me. Did I look like a soldier?"

 

"It's easier to pretend you have no skills than to pretend you have them," Mikkel said matter-of-factly. "All you had to do was shake a bit and hold the gun incorrectly."

 

"They were shooting at me!" Oliver screamed again.

 

"And some how they didn't hit the stumbling idiot who would have been the easiest target out there! You're not exactly helping your case here, Larsson." Oliver's temper flared again, something he very rarely ever felt toward Mikkel. The Mikkel he knew was kind, funny, and smiled a lot. This Mikkel probably did not know how to be any of those things. Oliver wondered what could possibly happen to someone to make them so cynical and down right mean, especially to someone as confused and utterly scared as Oliver was. He easily came to the conclusion that this Mikkel, this nightmare version of his best friend, was an asshole.

 

"Pretty sure they were too busy trying not to be killed by you! Seem awfully good at shooting people for someone that hates soldiers so much!" That observation had been subconscious, but Oliver knew it to be true once he said it. It was obvious that this Mikkel, the one that wore the face of his best friend, was no stranger to military strategy and weapons. Another frightening thought dawned on him in that moment. What if he was an alien that had killed Mikkel and stolen his skin! What if Oliver had lost time and came back to a world filled with aliens fighting humans? That made much more sense than Mikkel ever forgetting about him. That meant that he probably was in the alien colony right then and would suffer the same fate as his best friend.

 

"So are you admitting you are, or ever were a soldier for the US Government?" This body-snatching alien Mikkel looked pleased, as if he had tricked Oliver into incriminating himself. Oliver only could stare blankly at Mikkel for several seconds, trying to remember what he said and how the older man could possibly make that leap. As he worked it out, his face crunched into a hard frown again, glaring at the other man.

 

"I was never a soldier, America never took over Sweden, and I don't want to be turned into an alien!" Denying had not seemed to work yet, but Oliver hoped maybe throwing in that he figured out that they were a group of body snatchers would help move the conversation along. Mikkel's hand slammed onto the file again, voice loud when he spoke. It seemed to have turned into a screaming match at some point, as if raising their voices would make one side break down.

 

"We have twenty-five pages of service records to prove that you were a soldier in…" Mikkel only trailed off for a fraction of a second before his face became a portrait of confusion and his voice dropped in volume. "Wait, what?" Oliver sat back and grimaced a little. If he knew, then maybe they would just kill him right then for his skin. Maybe they would do horrible experiments on him until he told them everything he knew, which he admitted was not a lot. Either way, he knew that if something popped out of Mikkel and started attacking him, Oliver was going to run like hell.

 

"Aliens. You're all aliens, aren't you?"

 

"No, we're not," Mikkel said again, still looking at Oliver with confusion. "We're not… Stop trying to change the subject! You know exactly who we are since you knew my name, which is no small feat. I've practically erased my past, so the only way you would have heard of me, let alone seen a picture of me, is if you're with the Gov and are here to destroy us."

 

"I'm not here to destroy anyone! I was just lost!" Oliver cried back desperately, hands rose in a defensive posture. "I know you because, like I said, we're best friends! Or… or were! I don't know because there's no way you would forget about me!"

 

"And how are you going to deny this service record? What clever come back do you have for that?" Oliver could only stare at Mikkel, mouth ajar in silent begging. If he was not an alien, then how could he forget who Oliver was? And if he was not an alien, then how could Oliver not remember how he got to Sweden or why everything had gone to hell? He had not been back in the States long, and he was pretty sure he would have heard from some channel of information or another that America was taking military rule of his home country. None of the pieces lined up, and that left him more lost and confused than he had been since he had woken up cold and alone on the street.

 

"I'm really confused, Mikkel," Oliver whined slightly, pushing his hands over his eyes. It was how he would have spoken to his Mikkel, the one that would throw his arm around Oliver's shoulder and repeat things until Oliver understood them. This Mikkel was not that one, though, so Oliver held little hope for any familiar treatment. "I don't know what that says about me, but can I just tell you what I remember, and then you can maybe tell me what I don't?" Mikkel gestured absently with an open palm toward Oliver, giving him the floor, albeit reluctantly. He sat back and crossed his arms, and awaited Oliver’s take on things. Oliver breathed for several seconds, did not move as he thought about what he remembered. It was not as easy as it might have seemed, because at the time of the memories it was just normal routines, nothing exactly noteworthy. All of a sudden same-old became something that could save his life.

 

"We… That's the team… Our hockey team…" Oliver paused again, realizing that he started rough. He was not sure what this Mikkel knew, so it was important to cover everything. "Alright, we play for the same hockey team. _Arizona Coyotes_ , right? And you're my best friend on the team. Played together a bunch of years now. But we were in a game and we were definitely winning. And the last thing I remember was playing it, over in America, in _Glendale_. Then I woke up here, on that street. Thought… thought we won and I got drunk or something, but no way would anyone let me get drunk and wander off so I really don't know how I got there. So I started walking and that was when you guys saved me." Oliver was no longer sure if they really saved him in the long run, but at that moment they had. He could have been shot out on the street, and though he seemed, from the file, to have worked with the people that had been trying to kill this Mikkel and his group, Oliver highly doubted he would have had a warmer welcome with them.

 

"What was the date?" Mikkel asked, speaking up for the first time during Oliver's monologue. The younger man stared at him for a few seconds, a hint of confusion on his face. The date? He knew the hockey season in terms of off days, game days, and travel days. Oliver patted his pockets, looking for his phone that held the answer to every one of life's mysteries. He should have realized from his warm welcome search he had received in the base that he did not have the device on him, but it had not dawned on him until he had searched every pocket multiple times.  When he realized he would actually have to use his head to remember, Oliver carded his fingers through his hair and pulled slightly.

 

"Um, it was…" Mikkel did not break Oliver's thought process, waiting surprisingly patiently for Oliver to figure out the last day he remembered. To the members of Molious, the date was common knowledge, just like the time the sun rose and set. Ever since the American government took over, every citizen knew how many days they were under the tyrannical rule.

 

"It was the thirteenth of November." Oliver finally supplied, looking at Mikkel as if to make sure he was right. The man gave nothing away, but sat silently, almost as if waiting for Oliver to find his own answers.

 

"Year?" Oliver's brows scrunched again, as if he were about to retort that it was a stupid question. Something about Mikkel's posture, though, told him that it was the farthest thing from a stupid question. After worrying his lip for a moment, Oliver answered.

 

"Two thousand fourteen." At first Mikkel did not move, did not say anything, and Oliver felt like he had just failed some pop quiz. It really had been two thousand fourteen, though. Early in the fourteen-fifteen season, fresh off of vacations, camps, and pre-season training. He could almost still feel the disuse in his legs from the lazy summer.

 

It felt like an eternity that Mikkel just stared at him, most likely thinking, but definitely not acting on anything. Then, suddenly, he sighed and began to pack up the manila folder. Oliver leaned forward with a pleading expression on his face. He did not know what to ask: for a pardon from whatever unknown sin he committed, for an explanation of how the date seemed to have drawn things to a close, for pretty much anything really. Seeing the expression, Mikkel spoke, though it was flippant and far more than a little pissed off.

 

"Today is the fourteenth of November in year Twenty-One. The only people that don't use that system are part of Molious, and you're not. So you better start getting some damn convincing lies ready, or tomorrow I'll put a bullet in your head, and no amount of begging will stop me." Oliver wanted to retort, to beg and scream for Mikkel to believe him, but by the time anything other than shock could get into his system, the older man was out the door and Oliver was left alone in the claustrophobic room once more. He felt a desperate sob well up in his throat, but fought it off. He could think of no worse death than to be killed by his best friend who seemed, in one day, to have forgotten all about him. One hand grabbed a hold of his hair again as Oliver lowered his face to the table. His other hand, balled into a fist, slammed pathetically against the metal surface. He did not want to die.

 

Oliver was escorted by the big man several minutes later to a real, honest to god, cell, complete with thick metal bars and an electronic lock that buzzed loudly when released and again when engaged. He had the shadow of a feeling that he should do something prison like, like shout that they had the wrong guy, or shake the bars or something, but all he really felt like doing was laying down on the slightly stained mattress that sat crookedly on the ground.

 

There was no toilet, but a bucket that Oliver had no intention of using. He was thirsty and hungry, but more than either of those things, he was worn out. Oliver curled on his side, pulling up the dirt-smelling blanket that lay on the bed to cover him. He hugged his torso and stared absently at the grey wall, mind strangely rampant with thought and silence at the same time.

 

Four years ago Oliver had apparently died, but he knew for certain that that had not been the case. He had played hockey, had enjoyed his summer with his family, hung out with Mikkel and his friends from home, began training again, and was back state side before he knew it. There was actually nothing note worthy from four years ago. It had been normal, boring, and he definitely had not died. Yet that file had seemed pretty convincing to Mikkel, and even if he was an evil body-stealing alien, he was in the mindset that Oliver was dangerous.

 

Oliver felt anything but dangerous as he lay on the flat mattress, curled up into himself under the thin and itchy blanket. He felt scared. They would probably kill him, not take him home to his parents or his friends. Whatever had happened to the world had happened without his knowledge, and he still did not understand. His own mystery of how he had magically ended up in Sweden once more seemed to pale in comparison to, and become far less jarring than, what he would classify as a radical change to his usually peaceful country.

 

Guns were not rare in Sweden, most people at least owning a side arm, but there were never firefights in the streets, especially not with semi-automatic rifles. To have seen it, to be in the middle of it, and then to be told that America had taken over his home country just did not add up to Oliver. They had put men with guns on the street to shoot at those that opposed them, and Oliver was sure a lot of people would oppose an American take over, but Molious seemed to be far more than just a rag-tag group of civilians. Alien theory aside, that concept was so mind-blowing to Oliver that he hovered on it for close to an hour, staring blankly at the cement. He could not remember falling asleep, but it had come over him quickly close to dawn.

 

A loud buzzing startled Oliver awake. He was groggy and very confused as he sat up straight on the uncomfortable mattress. His body protested loudly, aches and pains that were very unfamiliar to him even after flights and bus rides where he managed to pull his frame into a tight ball and sleep with his head tucked against his knees or the window. Upon awaking Oliver thought that the memories of the previous day were a dream, something concocted by his brain after maybe a night of inebriation and exhaustion. He realized quickly, though, that whatever strange reality he had remembered still existed around him as he looked through the bars and toward the woman from the day before.

 

"Sleep well?" She asked with a bit of a smirk in her tone that was not completely kept off her face. Oliver blinked heavily as he continued to look at her, and did not respond right away.

 

"No," Was all he offered back once he exited sleep, and confusion cleared enough for him to even answer. He could taste his morning breath, thick and disgusting from just the few hours of sleep he had managed. The woman did not look any less amused by his grumpiness, and decided to not to ask any more on the subject. Instead she gestured to the side and a second later there was the loud buzzing sound Oliver had heard the day before that went with the cell lock. She grabbed the bars and pulled the door open, gesturing for Oliver to get up. He did, confusion and fear coming up again, but she did not pull a weapon on him.

The woman (Maria, Oliver’s brain supplied after a few seconds) spoke with a pleasant air that made Oliver feel more on guard. It was easier to take a prisoner to their death if they thought they were going to be safe, and maybe there was a specific place where they could rip his skin off and wear it or, more mercifully, just kill him. Maria looked at him in confusion as well, the quirk of a smile slowly falling off her face before it turned into a soft frown.

 

"What's wrong?" She began, gesturing for Oliver to come closer to her, to move out into the hallway. "Can't imagine you're liking it that much in there." Oliver still did not move, but just stared at her. No, he did not want to stay in the cell, but he also did not want to make her job easy.

 

"If I come out, you're going to kill me, aren't you?" He asked, almost deadpanned minus the fear in his eyes. It gave him away even when he thought the rest of his form was picture perfect. She did not laugh this time, did not quirk a smile of humor or delight. Instead she shifted her jacket, showing the sidearm in the holster by her hip. Oliver stared at it as she spoke, just waiting for her to unclip it and aim it at him.

 

"I could just as easily kill you here as I could out of this cell, but so far you haven't given me a reason to shoot you."

 

"Knowing Mikkel seems to be reason enough for him to want to kill me," Oliver said, almost flippantly, but with venom underlining his words. The woman finally quirked another smile, shrugging a little as she dropped her coat back against herself and hid the sidearm once more. In safety, she seemed to be a totally different person. On the street, when anyone could die at any moment, she was harried and distant, but in the base she was actually warm and motherly. She reminded Oliver just a little of his own mother, and he wondered if maybe they could figure out where his family was.

 

" _Chief_ has his own reasons for doing his own things. To me, you knowing him makes you more valuable than a threat, because there's obviously something about him that he doesn't want any of us to know. That makes him interesting to me, and though I like him, and don't want him in danger, it's a whole lot easier to keep him safe from whatever skeletons he has if I know a bit about them." Oliver was surprised by her answer, and though he still did not move toward her, he was starting to think that maybe she really would not kill him. Of course, that could still be going with the plan of lulling him into a false sense of security.

 

"So you love him?" Oliver asked. He did not necessarily mean romantically, and used the general Swedish term accordingly. The woman shrugged a little and smiled. It was not bashful, but humorous, as if Oliver had just told an old and no longer really funny joke.

 

"I love what he did for this group. Molious would have been eradicated long ago if he hadn't brought his certain… skills to us. Our founders had military training, but from the old European ways. When the Americans came over, took over, we needed to change tactics. _Chief_ gave us that, and our fatality rate dropped about seventy-percent. For that, yes, I do love him." She took a breath and smiled a little more at Oliver. "Not having to bury as many friends makes him almost look like the savior here." Oliver could not imagine Mikkel as a tactician. It seemed so out of place for the young, cheerful man he knew. The same guy that felt bad when accidentally laying more into a check than was strictly necessary could not plan how to attack compounds and kill other living and breathing beings.

 

"I really can't believe those things. I mean the Mikkel I know is so different. He's nice and loves everyone. He helps people as much as he can, and loves to see other people smile. He doesn't want to hurt people and definitely doesn't make people happy by killing others. He'd talk to people, not shoot them." Maria smiled again and leaned against the wall, hands in the pockets of her coat as she watched Oliver shift nervously. He never got to say what he knew of Mikkel to the man himself, never got to really explain how he knew him and why seeing him had been as surprising as it was. Mikkel's place was on an ice rink or at the beach. Mikkel's place was where there were smiles and fun, not death and warfare. Even when playing Call of Duty against the older man, something always felt off.

 

"And so, since you can't explain the seemingly sudden change, you rationalize it as us being aliens who take the skins of our victims and wear them as well-fitting Halloween costumes?" There was a playful scolding in Maria’s tone as she watched Oliver fidget more, but this time in mild embarrassment. She laughed finally; pretty bell tones that made Oliver feel less awkward about the strange assumption he had made. "Well, we're not aliens, if you can trust my word." Oliver shrugged a little, noncommittal since he still was not sure if he could trust them. They could not be aliens and still be anarchists and murderers.

 

"Will you help me find my family?" Oliver asked weakly, not putting his hope into it. The woman pushed from the wall, walking with conviction toward Oliver. He, in turn, backed up until he stumbled against the mattress. She caught his hand with her uninjured arm, the bells of laughter ringing again from her mouth. She shook his hand after steadying him, not weak in the slightest.

 

"My name is Maria, Oliver. It's a pleasure to meet you, and I will help you find your family and make us all understand just what is going on with you." Oliver had heard the woman's name in the tunnel, but his attention had been on Mikkel and the handgun, not on the vague introductions that were simply name-dropping.

 

"That means you believe me?" Oliver asked, awkwardly tapping out of the handshake before Maria herself was done.

 

"We'll find out if I believe you or not, right? That's the plan here. Now, come on, let's get you washed up."

 

Oliver was permitted a shower, given a toothbrush and toothpaste, even a little bit of dental floss, but the best part of all happened once his body was cleaned. A doctor treated his wounds. Sure, they were just skinned knees, hands, and a few bruises, but to get medical treatment meant that they were more than likely not going to kill him.

 

Maria had never really left during it all. Sure, he had been given privacy to shower and dress, but she stood nearby while he brushed his teeth and just outside the door, yet still in the door jam, as he got his mild wounds treated. She was pleasant, very sweet toward him during the whole thing. She seemed to be acting the exact opposite of how Mikkel had, almost to the point where it seemed like she was doing it on purpose. Oliver did not want to ask and make her drop the ruse, if that was it was, though. He wanted someone there who actually seemed to care about his comfort and safety, and not someone who asked him again and again why he was not dead and who exactly he was spying on.

 

Once clean and much happier with his predicament, Maria took him to the small mess hall they had in the base. It was not anything to write home about, just simple metal tables and benches in two military style rows. The food was bland, buffet style and obviously reheated; yet Oliver ate it as if he had not eaten for days. He had not noticed how hungry he had been until he took the first bite, stomach excitedly jumping to action. It felt like it had been much longer than a day since his last meal.

 

Maria ate as well but slower, calmer, than Oliver who continued to shovel helpings into his mouth. She watched him the whole time with a light, motherly smile on her face. Oliver paused just long enough to smile back at her, cheeks obscenely bulging from the quantity of food he had managed to fit into his mouth.

 

"I'll pass your compliments on to the chef," She quipped which made Oliver chuckle around the food. Eventually he began to slow, stomach urging him that he had had quite enough. He wasn't necessarily on the same page as it, though, so even though he felt full, he continued to pick at what was left on his plate. Seeing that his food intake was drawing to a close, Maria began to initiate conversation.

 

" _Chief_ went a little hard on you yesterday." She had mentioned the aliens before, something Oliver had only mentioned in the interrogation with Mikkel, so he could only assume she had been behind the glass, watching the man rip into him. Oliver frowned a little, pushing his food around on his plate.

 

"He went really hard on me," Oliver mumbled, eyes on the food. "Really thought he was going to kill me just because I didn't understand and couldn't tell him what he wanted to hear." Maria watched him, the smile falling from her face and into a neutral line.

 

"Well, spies and attempts at destroying Molious are pretty serious, Oliver. We're basically the last line of defense in Sweden from total American control." Oliver did not understand, the hierarchy of this world completely lost to him. Mikkel had acted like it was just the next day, like the world had gone to hell overnight, but what was going on around him, the counter-government attacks and the likes, seemed like years in the making. He doubted that even a country with military strength like America could take over Sweden in one night.

 

"I'm really not trying to destroy anyone. I really just want to find my family and figure out when all of this craziness started." Maria smiled softly, reaching across the table to gently take Oliver's hand. It was friendly, motherly, and what she hoped was helpful. Oliver warmed up a little and forced the hint of a smile onto his own face. It was stressed, but it was something.

 

"Then how about you tell me about your world?" It seemed like an odd way to put Oliver's memories, but with the huge rift in what Oliver knew of the world and what he had been suddenly immersed in, it seemed like the right phrasing. He took a minute, trying to decide where to start, but once he did it was a stream of consciousness laundry list. He first told her about himself, about being a hockey player, about living in America. He then told her about traveling, about going home for the summer and back to the States for the winter. He explained his family and, with a bit of prying, he told her about what little world affairs he knew. She seemed most interested in that which, on hindsight, really should not have been surprising. He knew about war and terrorism, but not to the level that she apparently did. When he slowly drew to a close, though, she was smiling. Oliver was surprised, and expressed so, wondering just how genocide and death were really something to smile over.

 

"I'm sorry. Yes, it's horrible what people do to each other, but here… Here it's different. It’s a much bigger scale. But, how about we save that for another time? I think I said I'd help you find your parents." Oliver did not need a history lesson from the woman when she told him that he would get what he wanted most of all. Upon seeing his excitement, Maria sent him a word of warning. His family could, possibly, not be found. Oliver did not understand exactly what she meant there, and really did not care. He could see his mom, dad, and brother, and that eliminated any sneaking suspicions that came with Maria's guarded words.

 

It was slightly over an hour later when Maria set Oliver with apologetic look. They had gone to some sort of information center of the Molious base. There were several computers set up, towers that housed servers sitting lonely and silent behind what Oliver assumed would be bulletproof glass. He had been poking at things for a while; talking lightly with Maria as the servers reported to her anything and everything they had on the closed unit on Oliver's family. When it was done scanning through all of its data, another program compiled it into a report. That was when things went south.

 

"They're dead, Oliver," Maria told him. Her words seemed practice, but lacked any tact. She was used to giving bad news to varying degrees of soldiers, not to a scared and lonely twenty-three year old. Oliver gaped a little, mind taking its time to process what she had said. They were… what?

 

"Dead?" Oliver toned back. Maria clicked through all three reports, but Oliver could only see the death records even when they had long since gone off the screen. The faces that had looked out were familiar, but with some dark despair in their eyes. Much like with his own photo the previous day in Mikkel's file, there were some subtle yet drastic things off with the pictures.

 

"No, no they can't be. I just… A couple months ago I saw them and they were fine!"

 

"It says that they were killed after attacking officers during an anti-Chinese raid. Five years ago, Oliver." Oliver felt like his knees were going to give out, so he fell back onto his chair. He honestly was not sure what emotion he should feel at getting the news that his family was not only dead, but killed five years ago. It felt like a cross check without pads and a concussion at the same time. Carefully he swallowed, feeling a lump in his throat that fought to be a sob. He kept it in, reading what Maria had stopped at. Her attention had gone fully onto Oliver, the motherly sadness on her features again. He could not chance looking at her or he really would break down. It was not difficult to keep his attention elsewhere, though, since he was drawn toward the report.

 

"W-what does it mean?" Oliver asked slowly, voice quaking noticeably. "Anti-Chinese raid?" Maria's brows creased. Apparently she knew she was out of her depth talking down a grief-stricken kid, but she tried nonetheless.

 

"China and North Korea joined up, pooling their resources and manpower to become a super-state. Power struggle ensued after that, China performing a German-style blitzkrieg on the surrounding countries as they moved to conquer Asia and then Europe. They had a lot of nasty shit, Oliver: bombs, chemical warheads, ICBMs and the like. They also had a lot of countries that were really sick of how the West was running the show. There were a good chunk of countries that signed over to China as soon as China showed they weren't in for a one-and-done war. America countered at first with tactical assaults, but realizing how fast China and its allies were snatching up less prepared countries, America began taking western Europe under military rule." Oliver digested that information, brows creasing as well.

 

"So America's protecting us and you people are fighting against America?" He asked, almost a shout as he pushed from his chair and looked down at Maria. He felt hatred at that moment. Oliver had not been alive for any World Wars, but he knew that those that tried to take over Europe, the ones that killed just to make a point, were the bad guys. He did not want to hear that Nazis had saved him.

 

Maria held up her hand, a defensive gesture that told Oliver to hold on. She had not been done and he had jumped to a conclusion.

 

"America came in here, much like Denmark, Finland, and Norway. They rounded up people-- people that they claimed were aiding the Chinese. It might have been true from time to time, but ironically enough there were members of the local media, generals that spoke out against America's take over, even normal people that had spoken maybe one too many times about how they weren't too sure that this was a good idea. Some just seemed to disappear, but most, and I mean most, were executed." Oliver's anger slipped away, bewilderment and disbelief taking its place. So, to get this straight, America came in like the white knight, and then proceeded to kill everyone that posed a threat? Maybe, Oliver thought, those people really were Chinese supporters, and they had deserved to die? His parents, though, he knew were innocent, and that soured the whole lot for him. Slowly he swallowed, heavy and thick as he slunk back into his chair. He felt deflated and confused, like he had been drugged.

 

"Was… Was China beaten?" Oliver asked meekly. Maria frowned and shrugged a little. She adjusted her posture a bit and set her full attention onto Oliver.

 

"No one knows. When America took over, all outside communication was halted. We only get their approved broadcasts and some under the wire information that can sneak through. By the sounds of it, the only thing going bump in the night out there is the Americans."

 

"And the people they claim are Chinese supporters?" Oliver asked, actually hopeful. His family might be dead, but he did not need their memories tarnished either.

 

"Well," Maria began, relaxing a little. "As far as we can tell, they actually take in the real Chinese supporters. No sense killing what you can gain information from. Your family, Oliver, I think was just innocents that ended up at the wrong time and place." Oliver nodded slowly, sad but understanding. Molious was not an evil organization, but just doing what they could with the information they had. He wondered about that, but also did not think prying more into their affairs would look good for his own innocence. All he knew then was that he had no family to go to, and that meant that he was truly alone.

 

Maria returned her attention to the computer, closing the reports before standing. She gently took Oliver's hand, pulling him to his feet. He still felt shaky, but he managed standing just fine. She smiled up at him, lightly and not pushing at all.

 

"I think it would help if you see how the world is, Oliver. It will help you understand." She would take him topside, show him how it had all gone down. Hopefully, then, he would get that they were just there to try to right the wrongs. She hoped, eventually, he would see them not as the monsters.


	3. Survivalism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 3 Warnings: Drug use, Language, Violence, Minor Character Death, Mentions of: Racism, Religious Divide**
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>  Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possessions)
> 
> Song for Chapter 3 Survivalism: [The Good Soldier - Nine Inch Nails](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQcMQ4LYiNQ)

Apartments reminded Mikkel of a different time. It reminded him of times before the war, before the assassinations, before Molious. It reminded him of a life before fate and bad decisions thrust his current life on him. It hurt to be in apartments, and not the kind of pain that a regiment of narcotics could remove. It was a deep pain, like memories scrawled on his bones, pulsing with blistering heat that seeped through every crack and scar. He would take more pills if he had not had a mission to carry out.

 

It was a nice apartment, all things considered. Not all of Stockholm had been destroyed, but the divide in classes was obvious. The upper echelon was essentially safe. America had molded them, making sure that only those that held their same ideals were in power. Whites, Christians, and economic gurus were handed the jobs. Those that did not fall into that grouping were cast aside, pushed down until their spirits broke. They were paid just enough to live off of, doing the dirty work that no one wanted. They were kept down there through fear and propaganda. Mikkel watched it in Denmark, watched the soul-crushing authoritarian rule ruin families and individuals. He had watched it ruin himself too, but not when it had been happening to him. However, he could see it in high definition as he looked back.

 

The mission was simple. Actually, tactically it had been a nightmare, but once he was there, following the game plan step by step, it was simple enough. The apartment had been step one. Following that was a job at the ballpark. It was not a glamorous job, so the interview process was not as rigorous as it would have been if he had had a more mainstream target. Luckily his time in the trenches taught him a thing or two about flying under the radar. It had taught him a thing or two about many things.

 

They called him the Good Soldier. Mikkel never would have believed it if he had not seen it with his own eyes. Those that knew him never would never have called him that, but that meant that those that did call him that did not know him. He was mentioned in whispers of text, zeros and ones that, when combined, conveyed meaning to those that managed to find their secret websites. The best part of what he did was that it was done anonymously, and hidden even from Molious. They could possibly have been proud of his exploits, but there was also a good chance that they would kill him because of his extra missions. If they called him unstable it would not have been a surprise in the least. Mikkel felt like he was standing on a boat on good days. On bad he assumed he was comparable to a lunatic. The only thing that kept him grounded, that eased the pain that drugs could not, was the killing. He was not sure what primal part of him the Government had crushed back then, but he assumed it was the same part that told him human life was precious because he no longer thought it was.

 

The way Mikkel saw it, through whatever haze of inhuman rage hung in his system that day, those that wanted to survive more would, and Mikkel did not need to survive to make sure that the Government did not either. He would get his message out, under the guise of the Good Soldier, and maybe, just maybe, he could teach those willing to survive how do so as well.

 

Mikkel opened his laptop. Bluetooth and Wireless cards had been removed, leaving no chance of an outside connection seeping in. He would record what he needed to, route it through server after server on the way out, and then destroy the laptop. He could get a new one, and always had. A bullet in the head, though, would be the end to his Good Samaritan campaign. He was sure that eventually he would be done in that way, dead while fighting, but in the mean time he would ruin as many Government soldiers and front men as he could. He would get the message out to others that stood against the lies.

 

Baseball was something that the Americans had brought over. There was some strange necessity they had to make the European countries they took over just like their American civilians. Maybe it had something to do with the complacency, the drooling and happy brain-dead people that had no idea what was going on out there in the big, bad world. It had not always been the case, though. When Mikkel had begun his one-man crusade, there were cells in America doing just what he and Molious were doing. They were using the same IRC boards as him, and were training people how to stand up to the lies. Then they slowly but surely disappeared. Mikkel hoped, deep down, that they were just hiding out; that the pressure got too heavy and they had to bail for a bit. It had been a year, though, and his ability to be hopeful had dropped significantly. He knew they were dead.

 

He had shown up early for his job as a beer guy. He emptied kegs and filled them with pamphlets that read, " _Your Government is poisoning you"_ , packing each with small explosive charges and balloons filled with silver nitrate. Luckily America had not thought to track purchases of non-lethal chemicals yet. Sure, he would not be killing anyone with silver nitrate, but he would make people pay attention to the message. There was no way to cover things up when people were flocking to doctors as they panicked over the pigment of their skin changing, especially after being in the middle of what Mikkel knew the Government would call a terrorist attack.

 

Earlier that week he had found a pilot, a small plane guy that needed a few extra bucks. It was easy to convince him to fly a banner after slipping him five hundred dollars. They loaded one that had said, " _Marry me Irene_ ," but Mikkel had doubled back, swapping it out for one that read, " _This is a bomb, Fuckheads. Wake the fuck up._ " He was never a poet, and the swear words added a certain finesse that a more flowery word choice would not. He did not need the people packing the stadium to think of him as a hero. He just wanted them to never forget that day, just like so many days that repeated over and over again in Mikkel's mind. They would hopefully learn something from the horror he would put them through.

 

Grabbing a syringe of Opal, Mikkel prepared. It would push him through the mission, keep him clear headed until the message was delivered. He could take a follow up dose if need be, but once he started, there was no time for hesitation-- no time for another quick fix. The drug burned slightly at the injection point, pushed just under his fingernail so no one would be the wiser. He could have inserted it in his tear duct like the rich did, but there was a chance it could mess with his vision, and at this range he did not need an unknown variable.

 

The Opal felt thick, though it was actually thinner than his blood. It always felt like he was putting something heavy into his body, and not exactly in the sense of an actual weight. People had said things about this weight that the drug held, and Mikkel had always assumed that it meant exactly what he experienced. It seemed to make sense in that way, but then he had begun to hear about the trips, about seeing the Presence and feeling the weight of the world. He knew he had an unhealthy addiction, but it paled in comparison to those people that were so hooked on it that they were starting to believe they were having holy visions. Just a testament to another way America had fucked them all.

 

American press claimed the drug came from Colombia. It was their new outsource made from cocaine and heroine. American spokespeople animatedly detested Opal, put out raids against it to stop shipments into America and their overthrown territories, but it was all a ruse. The Good Soldier and the operative group from America were not the only ones on the IRC boards. There were people from all over the world, including one very resourceful woman from Colombia that dropped the bombshell to all of them.

 

Opal was American in the strictest sense. It was made in American labs, shipped from American ports, and alternate versions were being used in American medicine. It was a neat little operation, one that made addicts right in the doctors' offices. By pretending, as they did with most policies, that their beloved DEA was on the ball and attempting, tirelessly, to ruin the drug cartels, their wonderful puppets felt safe. They felt like they needed America and her benevolent rule. Instead they were just being poisoned.

 

Mikkel lit up a cigarette, taking a long and slow drag before he pressed record on his laptop. He exhaled and tested, making sure he was coming through loud and clear. He was, and with another drag, he started for real.

 

It was an easy set up, explaining the plan. He told his soon to be audience about the bombs, about the banner, about how to do exactly what he had done in preparation for the mission. He flipped on the TV, letting the sounds of the baseball game give a running report of his plan in full motion. Baseball was something that the Government had to broadcast. Since making the sport a national pastime, it would cause havoc to not show it. Unfortunately, if he had picked a different venue, maybe just assassinating someone out on the street, the Government and their strictly controlled broadcasts could have buried it. Attacks on live events promised airtime.

 

Mikkel had just finished his cigarette when the plane flew over the ballpark. The Government appointed spokespeople reacted, they had to, but it was practiced and slightly ridged. The announcers on the TV took control by offering condemnation for someone that would purposely scare people like that. They told everyone it was nothing to be alarmed over, that they would all be safe. Mikkel toned over them into the microphone.

 

" _I called the authorities five minutes ago. Told them the pilot is a civilian; if they shoot him down, that'll be on them._ " He took a sip of water, waiting as the timers on the bombs clicked to zero, and the explosions began. It was not timed perfectly, though. One went off, then a few more, but within three seconds they had all exploded, raining silver nitrate and pamphlets upon the entirety of the park. The screams started, panic, but not pained, and Mikkel just let that sound speak for itself for several seconds as he unpacked his riffle.

 

The commentators definitely were not briefed entirely on how to handle a crisis like the one Mikkel had made. They lost their cool more than a few times, but the play-by-play announcer held himself well. He condemned Mikkel's attack, calling him a coward, a terrorist, the scum of the Earth. Ironically, Mikkel actually felt all those things toward that man. Liars that rape and killed his home were trying to teach him about morality. He knew what he was doing would, classically, be described as terrorism, but when there was no way to do what was right in all regards, Mikkel had decided to walk the grey area. If that made him a terrorist, so be it, but he was far from gun shy about it.

 

The commentator had hooked himself into the PA, sending words of support out to the crowd that panicked and ran, screaming with fear. He toned out to them that they would prevail, that the cops would get the people responsible and that they would be brought to justice. That everyone should remain calm and exit orderly. That no harm would come to them and that the American soldiers would make sure they all got home or medical treatment as needed.

 

Mikkel explained his gun as he set it up, attaching the bipod and scope. His bullets were pricey, but for the range and target, he needed something reliable. He had one shot to put the period at the end of his demonstration of force, and a miss would not do.

 

He loaded the chamber and cycled the bullet. The announcer had not stopped talking yet, calling Mikkel weak, a fly to be crushed under heel, and that he would get what was coming to him. Mikkel had no doubt about that last part, but until then he could ruin as many lying bible thumpers as he could.

 

He took his time aiming, letting the man scream for the wrath of God to be put down upon Mikkel, and once he reached his crescendo and Mikkel had compensated for the wind, he took the shot. The recoil hit him hard, but he did not flinch as he watched the bullet streak effortlessly though the play-by-play announcer's throat. It was a clean shot, into the spine and not out. He watched the man's head rock back and his chair tip slightly, hands jerking up uselessly to try and put pressure on the entrance wound that gurgled out blood. Assistants that were already scared rushed to help the man that had no idea he was already dead. Moments later the feed cut and Mikkel knew he had scared them. He ejected the casing, letting it clink loudly against the wooden floor. Downstairs somewhere a dog barked, and the streets had begun quickly filling with cop cars hurrying to the ballpark. Mikkel brought his riffle in from the window, removing the scope and bipod as he spoke.

 

" _They need to know that if they get on the air and lie to us, there will be a price to pay. We won’t stand by idle and let them rape this world. We won’t let them fuck with us any more. Fear is the only fucking language these assholes understand. You need to give them that fear for yourself and your kids. A credit card in a hardware store can make you a hero if you have the will._ " He stopped the recording and stared at his computer for several seconds, almost as if the weight of what he had just done had finally crashed onto his shoulders. In the background was a growing crescendo of sirens and the high-pitched tone of the off air broadcast. Mikkel could not seem to convince himself to move and minutes dragged by. Finally something snapped him from his stupor, making him jerk away from the computer and almost drop his rifle that he had been holding the entire time. Everything seemed normal, the sirens still blaring, the screams from the park still emanating, and the general aftermath of his demonstration in full effect. No, it was not a sound or sight that snapped him back to reality, but a cold shiver that had clawed its way up his spine. He put his gun on the table and grabbed another syringe of Opal. He jabbed it into his arm, needing it in him faster than he needed cautious deniability.

 

The creeping horror of his actions did not come upon Mikkel often. Something buried deep within him canceled them out, made the impossibly grotesque feats he performed seem commonplace and not nearly as bad as they actually were. In those moments of clarity, though, when it dawned on him just what a monster he was, he took more drugs. He made sure that they would not again come to the surface for some time. He readied another syringe just incase it was needed.

 

In the haze, what was usually a sweet linear path that made him act and think faster, more horrors came that day. If he had the courage to face himself in calmer moments when he could take a real introspective look at himself he would have realized it was the terrified screams that had brought up the memory. Memory, though, might not have been the right word for it. It was not quite his memory, but something more elusive than that. It was more like chasing shadows in the Allegory Cave than any concrete remembrance; unsure of what was real and what was just the dark image of a fake reality he had managed to put himself inside of.

 

It could have been a file he had found on the IRC boards, or something so terrible his mind had no choice but to black it out, but Mikkel could actually see the images strung together like an old movie. A young woman in the wrong place at the wrong time; bodies being ripped to pieces and bled to death on the floor of the nightclub. Something came to the surface of Mikkel's mind, more folktale than memory once again, but things that some part of him thought to be true. For years they had all been poisoned-- drugs in the water, in the meats, and in the bread to name a few. The drugs that made them complacent, but to some, a small percentage that the Government decided was small enough to allow, it made them dangerous. The right concoctions, the right host, and they could make a mindless killer. They had not actively made the one that entered the club that night, but he existed, and he would prove to be a learning experience for the Government scientists.

 

The monster entered, and Mikkel saw through his eyes. At first no one looked at him as he stalked through the crowds, but once one person noticed the blood soaked shirt, the way more blood bubbled from his pores like thousands of pinpricks, then the chain reaction of realization started. One person, another man, asked him if he needed a doctor, and whatever small thread that still held together the man that Mikkel inhabited snapped. He screamed, a sound that could curdle blood, and he moved-- he stabbed and slashed. Each strike was fatal, but not instantly. He would choke on his own blood or spray it onto the surrounding tile, but he would die there regardless. Mikkel did not lash out again, though, screams of fear of those around him mixing with his own. He had no need to breathe, and just continued to howl in rage, or was it fears he himself felt? It didn't matter, though, because seconds later a beer bottle was smashed over his head, shards of glass dragging over his face and opening gruesome wounds. He fell, his own knife stabbing into himself. He felt none of it and yet his body dropped. He would also die slow, but the damage was more than already done.

 

The interesting thing to the Government about the Berserkers was that though the drugs made them, they subsequently became a walking biochemical weapon. Mikkel had no idea how he knew that, but as he watched the ripple effect of violence move outward from his initial attack, he felt pride. He had infected two people, and it would grow exponentially from there. His blood was the poison and the man that attacked him would spread it farther than the one dying next to him. It took no more than a minute after that for the next wave to start, and Mikkel watched it all with the strange understanding. The man who gurgled blood passed the pathogen on to all those that tried to help him, and the man who killed Mikkel would strike out first.

 

Some one had called the police, and besides the man dying on the floor, it seemed like it was all over. Then the man with the beer bottle reacted, stabbing and thrashing with the tainted shards of glass. It was not much longer before the people helping the man on the floor changed as well. They turned on the other bystanders-- scratched, clawed, punched, and picked up objects to use as makeshift weapons. Soon the club turned into a bloodbath and Mikkel watched with glee from the floor where his shell lay dead, unmoving and unblinking. He was just the fuse to the powder keg, and his job was done.

 

He could hear a woman crying: Mia, a pretty raven-haired girl, no older than twenty-two. She did not want to die, and she begged and pleaded to god, to anyone really, to save her. She clutched her cell phone to her ear, sobbing as she cowered in the stock room and listened to the violent deaths just on the other side of the wooden door. It would not help her, though, because she was already infected. As she ran she had stumbled and touched Mikkel's pooling blood, and though she wiped it furiously on her pants, it was already inside of her. Mia's panic intensified as it destroyed her body, and those that fought in the club knew, instinctively, that only one would be alive at the end of the battle and they did not want it to be her. They charged the door and eventually it gave way. Like a pack of animals they moved to tear her apart, and she fought back as the violence overtook her as well.

 

When it was finally over and only one remained standing, the cops moved in. They were in biohazard suits, guns raised. It was easy to pick out their target amongst the fallen bodies, and Mia was eliminated within seconds by a hail of bullets. She did not cry out any more, the little raven-haired Mia, because she could feel no longer. Even death held no fear anymore.

 

Mikkel did not know when the shadow-play of memories he was sure had not been his own had faded back into reality, but eventually he realized he was simply staring at the uninteresting wall of the apartment. He sat in a wooden chair and his hands held tightly to the unused syringe of Opal. Once he realized it, he injected another dose. Whatever that was that he saw through dead eyes that were not his own, it needed to be buried once more. He had not noticed he was far worse off than normal that morning.

 

It was hours later when Mikkel finally came to himself long enough to shake off the distant itches of memories and what had threatened to be guilt. The police had already started to sweep the area looking for the shooter. Luckily they were used to the tag and run tactics that Molious and other cells used, so their hope was probably pretty small for finding him still there and so they moved slowly. Mikkel could use that to his advantage, and he worked to put away his gun and the one spent casing. He knew enough about the Government to know their methods. He had chosen an apartment with enough escape routes to use incase there was an unforeseeable problem. An unforeseeable problem was exactly what he had.

 

Zipping his case shut and ejecting the USB stick with his recording on it, Mikkel took to the fire escape. He was fit and agile, and though he made some noise on the metal ladders, it was nothing that the normal sounds of the city could not mask. However, Mikkel moved as if the cops were right on his tail because for all he knew they were. Occasionally he glanced over his shoulder, ready to make a run for it if need be. The alley was deserted, though, and toward the end there was a sewage line he could slip into and use to make his way across town. No one charged him and no one even passed him in the narrow corridor, and as quickly and quietly as he could, he popped the manhole cover and slipped below ground.

 

It was slightly over an hour later when Mikkel reemerged from the sewer system on the other side of town. He shoved the manhole cover up and out with his shoulder, checking the surrounding area before bringing his gear out of the hole with him. He had navigated his way to the outer section of the city, a part that was run down and beat to hell. Replacing the heavy metal lid, Mikkel began to move again.

 

The streets were worn and cracking. Potholes were rarely filled, and only done so once they got so large that there was almost no road left. There was no grass, only strangely boxed in patches of dry dirt where things used to be able to grow. Standing tall, but neglected, were old shells of hotels and businesses. Some still struggled to stay open, converting to bars or corner stores, but most just turned into hostels where people trying to get a job in the once booming city would stay the night, or the rest of their lives. Things were hard in the sections kept down by the oppressive military rule of America. Mikkel did not like looking around him usually, but that day, when things that were deep had begun to claw their way out, he needed to see exactly what he fought for.

 

He had never been to Sweden before the demise of self-rule, but he had managed to see some pictures of what it had looked like before the introduction of massive industrialization. Since then, all physical records of Sweden before America took over had been erased, and any person that showed them in more than just photos in their house were detained and eventually disappeared. The only record was through the resistance boards and in stories parents told their children. If a different path had worked for Mikkel, if he was a father, a husband, then he would have be telling his children about the forests, about the grass, and about the night sky that they no longer saw through the smog that constantly hung over everything and rose the temperature of the earth. He would have told them about walking in the rain as a little kid and how it did not burn like acid when it hit his skin. He could not even imagine what life would be like now if twenty-some years ago they had all realized they were killing the earth. Maybe, then, the American overthrow would never have happened. Maybe, then, Mikkel would have had a real life.

 

Mikkel had not been to that particular part of Stockholm in years, but it was apparent that nothing had improved. The sidewalks were littered with displaced people, either run out of the nicer section of town or forced to come to the city for any number of reasons. Work was the primary reason because those that used to work the land for anything other than raw ores for more industry could no longer grow crops. Now all the jobs were in factories and in cleaning up for the elite. Nothing was simple and carefree anymore.

 

Ducking into one of the old grand hotels that had become no more than a cheap and accessible hostel, Mikkel approached the weary looking elderly lady that stood as manager. Really she basically ran the entire place by herself, and though that had not always been the case, Mikkel still knew her.

 

"Hello, Margie, how have you been?" Mikkel asked as sweetly as he could. He had no real care for her outside of the basic protectiveness he felt for all the civilians that had just gotten caught up in the power struggle, yet she also held a deeper history with Mikkel. He leaned over the desk and kissed her on the cheek. She did the same in return, not knowing him from sight due to the thick cataracts that had formed over the years, but knowing him perfectly from the way he spoke her nickname. Her real name was Amelia, but her middle was Margaret. Her late husband had called her that, and Mikkel had been let into their very small circle of trust when he had saved their son and his family from an executioner style end. Unfortunately the American soldiers were not deterred from what they considered to be due justice and had taken the patriarch of the family in their stead. Amelia's husband refused to let them call their son back from where he and his family had made their way to Russia and beyond, and he had died knowing he, with Mikkel’s aid, had saved his legacy. Mikkel did not necessarily believe that to be true, because Amelia had not heard from her son in three years, and Mikkel knew there was little to no chance of survival on the run. Skills were required for that which the civilian populous just did not have. Still, Margie believed it and Mikkel, for once, could not find the cruelty to tell her otherwise.

 

"It's been over two years, son," She told him, and for a woman with almost no sight she had an impeccable ability to tell time. It had been just over two years since he had last graced her establishment, and he had been in no contact during that time. "Would have thought the worst if it was anyone but you." Mikkel's lips quirked up at her airy comment that was almost a compliment. It was a shadow of a grin that she could not see.

 

"I have been busy, Margie, you know that." He responded as he put his gun case in front of him and against the counter as to not draw anymore unwanted attention than he already had.

 

"Heard there was a terrorist attack on the ballpark today," She commented in a fashion that would seem no more than relaying facts. Really, events like that were no different than talking about the weather in the poverty section. However, she had her suspicions that Mikkel had been involved and it was well placed. He did not have much of a Robin Hood reputation, and no one knew his name for a reason, but if he found out that one of those that he had helped were unjustly attacked again, then he would make sure that the Government paid for it exponentially, and Margie was aware of that side of him.

 

"So did I, tragic really. Hopefully no one got hurt." She knew Mikkel was just shoveling shit, so when he stopped, she grabbed a key for him. She had welcomed him there any time, and though he rarely showed, it was always in the aftermath of something gone wrong. She never asked if he needed anything, and he never asked for anything. Refuge in a room unaccounted for was all he usually needed, and all he would accept from a civilian who had lost so much already.

 

"No more than a few days, Margie," He told her quietly, and she said nothing else. She only nodded once and turned away, letting Mikkel take the stairs up three floors. He knew where the room was, and it did not take him more than a minute to be in it with the bolts latched. He was running low on Opal and knew he would have to take a trip out once dusk fell so he could get some more, but he still had a few hours to kill, and he took up a guarded position near the window to wait it out. The odds of soldiers finding him out there were minimal, but he still had to be sure. If they came snooping too close to the hotel he would pick off as many as he could, let the locals get Margie to safety, and then die the way he always knew he would. As long as the choice was his, he would not be taken back to the Government alive.

 

Mikkel's mind wandered, but his attention never strayed from the street below. He perfected being in two places at once, and as soon as he saw anything wrong, he would snap back to the present. The Opal in his system was thinning; a large tolerance for it not helping the drug's effect at all, but it would be too careless to chance getting more right then. Instead he thought, and that was usually a poor substitute.

 

People over the years had been dragged from their families, much like Margie's son, his wife and his children. They were to be made an example of under the banner of being Chinese supporters. The world order had been thrown into chaos, China, with the union of dictatorships all over the word, rising up against the super powers. Of course many countries chose sides, but those that rode the pine were forced into helping one side or the other over time. That was the truth in the strictest sense, but what was not known was just what had come of the big war in the mean time. Once declarations were given that bombs would begin being lobbed back and forth, all communication between the sides seemed to have stopped. At least there was none that leaked out passed the highest security clearance. It was true that the war very well could still have been going on, that the American and allied forces were still fighting China's warriors, but with all the time that had passed with no real news from the war front besides some fudged death count statistics and the bare minimum propaganda news, the odds of there still being battle fronts seemed unlikely. Even in the underground IRC channels there was nothing from Chinese resistances or their allies. He figured that there had to be some unrest in the countries that had sided with China, that there had to be cells just like Molious moving to uproot the warmongering leaders, but he had heard not a peep from them ever. It was things like that that had slowly cast a dark and looming shadow on what seemed to be America's noble war.

 

When America and her allies originally claimed military rule over Denmark, Mikkel had thought it for the best. There was always the chance of them being dragged into the war, so to be backed by the super powers made him feel safer. They had begun rounding up people that appeared to have Chinese sympathies, and in his naive youth he thought it was the way to go. Only much later did he realize that Chinese Supporters actually meant those that did not conform to the American motto of god and country. They were actually just people that questioned the tactic, that wondered if joining the American allies and letting the country's military be put toward a war that they had no real place being in was a good decision. They were just people with questions that ranged through every skin color and every creed. Their only crime had been to wonder, and for that they were lined up and executed.

 

It had been more tactful than a public shooting gallery, Mikkel knew, but with his inside information it had appeared to be just that. You could scare people into not wanting to question any more, you could crush them under heel and make them complacent and willing to recite the Star Spangled Banner in any damn language you pleased, but to do that you had to make an example of just what could happen if one did not comply. Soon most had begun to just go with it, accept the loss of personal liberty, accept the new regime that was in place. It was better than being dead, after all. Except there were still those that were willing to lose everything to stand up and say no, and that was where Mikkel had found Molious.

 

They were a ragtag bunch when Mikkel entered the picture, but they had promise. Many members were young baby faced revolutionary types that were brought up on video games and self-identified injustices, but they also knew when a serious breach of personal rights was upon them. They had taken the ultimate call to arms to fight against what had become their own Government, and for that Mikkel believed they could actually make a difference. He had met with the leaders of the crew, almost unheard of with how deep underground they had had to go after forming Molious, but he had won their respect and trust, and took his spot amongst team after team, teaching them how to fight and not die. In exchange for fewer fatalities and more cunning attacks on Government soldiers, Mikkel was allowed the freedom to complete his own missions. After that had been bestowed upon him, Mikkel made a point to rarely meet with the leaders. They did not need to know how broken he had become in his pursuit for vengeance.

 

Yes, Mikkel knew far too well that he was broken, but with the images that swam deep, with the scars that were burning on his bones, he figured there was no other way to be. He had tried to give up all the personal injustices and join Molious as just another soldier. He had tried to put it all away, but with each kill, with each soldier wearing an American flag on his or her sleeve that hit the ground in their own blood, he honored one more of the innocents that had died. He gave justice to one more body that was thrown into the furnace of one of hundreds of new factories under the strict order to never tell another living soul about the needless slaughter. He had a lot of those to seek justice for, and in those moments, looking out on the street and wondering just when the Government would catch up to him, Mikkel wondered if America and her allies even had enough soldiers to sacrifice for each innocent life that they had taken. Mikkel knew his own hands would never be clean, and in those moments of clarity he knew he did not want them to be. He wanted to die as the Good Soldier, one man to stand up to a super power and make them never forget that not everyone will just lie down and take it.

 

As dusk settled over the barren and dying city named Stockholm, Mikkel got ready to go out and resupply his fix. He would take along his sidearm and a knife, but nothing else. He would abandon his sniper rifle if he needed too, but with business as usual on the streets, Mikkel did not think he would have to. Still, any soldier he could lay out would just be one more toward avenging Mia, the young woman killed in the club from all of America's senseless toying. It, however, would take a lot of kills to avenge her.


	4. The Good Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 4 Warnings: Drug use, Mentions of: Religious Divide, Sex**
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> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
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> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possessions)  
> Song for Chapter 4 The Good Soldier: [Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J2QdDbelmY)

Mikkel returned to his safe room well after dark. He, once again, needed to use the front entrance because all other forms of access to the room Margie kept for him had been cut off. No fire escape hung below his window, and no back stairwell went to the third floor. The only other soul on his floor would have been Margie herself who very rarely went up there anymore. Her downtime to sleep or eat was taken in the small quarters behind the old worn and scratched desk that she usually stood vigil at. Moving up to the third floor had obviously just become too difficult in her advanced age, and Mikkel was thankful for the solitude. If something went wrong then there was a less of a chance for innocent casualties.

 

Nothing had actually gone wrong so far. Mikkel was not necessarily surprised by that fact, but he had continued to check corners and watch his back since his regular stoicism had gone to hell. If his ability to internalize all the tragedy and horror had broken, then there was no predicting what else could have become incapacitated as well. For years Mikkel had put himself under, made sure that the horrors of what he did never made it impossible for him to keep doing what needed to be done. However, with having to look back, to really watch his atrocities come in the dark to seek their revenge, Mikkel felt more on edge than normal.

 

Mikkel did not necessarily know the drug dealers in Stockholm, but he had cash and usually looked like he needed a fix, so they sold to him. He had never been sure if Antoine, the man he usually bought Opal from, had spread around what Mikkel looked like, or if Mikkel himself looked more rundown than usual, because this drug dealer, a young woman with chopped red hair and a nose ring, did not think twice about selling to him. Additionally she had some other goods that she thought Mikkel would have been interested in.

 

"Some of the first shipments we got in-- called _Prozira_. Docs are using them now to treat all kinds of things, and they really work. Calm you down, slow you down, and make all those worries go away. What're you thinking pal?" She waved a small container in front of Mikkel, one that looked strangely like an old film canister. Inside rattled something that sounded like pills. "Five Hundred and you can enjoy a little peace, friend." Mikkel could not precisely remember what peace had felt like, and with his current flight from any pursuing law he had no interest in remembering just then, but if the pills really had come from doctors, then that meant America was pushing more heavily on drugging civilians, and Mikkel would have to find out exactly to what degree. He bought the container reluctantly and practically stalked back to the hostel. He was not sure what part exactly had soured his mood even further, but he gathered it was because even though he did very public demonstrations of violence, even though he had hidden from any and all attempts to capture him and thought he had them on their heels, the Government was still pushing forward with their plans of domination. Mikkel had decimated entire military outposts and the Government still considered him nothing more than a mild annoyance that would eventually die, like a fly.

 

Though the new swelling of hate had entered his system, Mikkel cautiously returned to his room and prepared to hold it for the night. He readied a syringe of Opal and carefully injected it under his fingernail yet again. He hoped the injection point in his arm would not be noticed once he arrived back at Molious, and he did not need to add more to the potential scandal. It was not that they opposed his drug use, because they did not know, but he had seen other members go through forced detox when they were declared unfit for service, and Mikkel knew that would mean certain death for him. The black Opal was what held him together, and without it he knew nothing would keep the demons in check.

 

Mikkel sat back and let the drug work. He usually would have been weary after the way it had treated him earlier, but Opal had saved him far more times than it had hurt him, and it was hard to let an old friend go after one transgression. It would keep him awake and alert through the night, and once daylight hit and there were far more people on the streets below to give him warning of an attack, then he would sleep. With the handgun resting on his lap, safety off and grip against his palm, Mikkel waited.

 

Actual memories, familiar and easily placed, came to Mikkel's mind over the next half an hour. Slowly they formed videos behind his eyes, like he was there and reliving those moments again. A dusty and broken down room, brightened and cleaned until it was a sunlit apartment in Denmark; clean yet lived in. There were greenhouse grown flowers on an end table that would be dead within the week, but Sidney always went out and got more. She would often say that it brought life to their home when everything outside was dead. Mikkel had always taken it like that, just the facts of those words and nothing else. His older and arguably wiser self knew better than that, though. She had known that even they were dead in some way, much like the plants would be.

 

Sidney was tall, taller than Mikkel in her heeled shoes, with long auburn hair. She had green eyes that he swore glowed when the light shown on them and her irises constricted. Perfect was the word he had used to describe her for years, and it was the word whispered in her ear after she had said yes to his marriage proposal. He was only eighteen and yet he knew that she was the only woman for him. They had grown up together, and though he never thought she would care for him the way he always secretly cared for her, he had held hope. Eventually he had worked up the nerve to ask her out, and though he was still slightly guarded toward the idea that they would be forever, it had all worked out. He had known her parents; she had known his, so there was no problem from either side when he asked for her hand. They were young, but Mikkel eventually came into the knowledge that it truly would be the love that lived forever.

 

Out of school they had gotten an apartment. She worked in the evenings and continued her education during the day, and Mikkel worked at a mechanics garage. They shared weekends smiling and laughing, making memories and a home together. They were supposed to be married that following summer, but circumstances changed. One Saturday night when they were sitting at a local restaurant, Mikkel made a decision for both of them.

 

It had been four years since America had taken military rule over Denmark, and back then they had been informed it was for the best. Though Sidney and Mikkel spoke about it infrequently he had known her opposition to the overtaking of their country. When they were kids it had just turned into a fact of life, but as they grew, she had begun to question. Mikkel admitted he had never been big on the questioning social order thing, but he listened to Sidney in the few times she brought it up, and even debated with her a little, but no clear winner ever came out of it. They had always just decided to agree to disagree because it would have been impossible to kick America out, just the two of them.

 

They had known about the terrorist cells, how they had been called Chinese supporters and were to be taken as very dangerous and willing to kill. That night they had proven as much to the couple. As they sat, eating their dinner and just talking about anything, a group of people entered the restaurant. It was not the slow entrance of patrons, but the hurried and panicked entrance of men on the run. They held guns and when one person noticed, the whole restaurant did. Most people ducked, some ran, and in the chaos the nervous gunmen pointed their weapons. In hindsight Mikkel figured they had done it to protect themselves, but there were too many scared people and they were uncoordinated. The most nervous man fired, hitting some fleeing civilians, and though another member told them not to shoot, more gunshots rang out. They were from the side arms of some police that had happened to be in the restaurant.

 

With a gunfight breaking out in the enclosed building, Mikkel could do nothing but lay over his soon to be wife and pray. More civilians were hit in the exchanging of bullets, but all of the terrorists were eventually killed. More police arrived, soldiers arrived, and Sidney and Mikkel rose in stunned silence. It had looked, at the time, that the cops had saved them, but years later Mikkel had looked into it. In the chaos that he had not seen, the two cops had shot several civilians that had tried to flee through the front door. It had been accidental, Mikkel still assumed, but they had never grieved the unnecessary loss of life. All they had wanted was their medals for having killed a group of freedom fighters.

 

At the time, as Mikkel walked a shaking Sidney from the restaurant, as they stepped over bodies, he felt not hatred for the unnecessary loss of life, but a certain exhilaration directed toward the cops. He had decided, at that moment, to enlist for the war effort.

 

Sidney had her arguments against it: the death statistics, the odds of him being assigned to anything but a death squad, but his mind had been made up. He had kissed her gently on the forehead, not wanting a fight, but wanting understanding. He held her hands as he told her that he wanted to save civilians, even if that meant being at the front line and ending the war once and for all. He talked to her about when the war ended how they could go back to how it used to be. How they could have a family that did not live under the American Government.

 

Mikkel had hardly needed Sidney's approval, but he wanted it. He wanted her to understand why he needed to enlist, and why he needed to do good by himself. He never received it, however, as she reached up to take hold of the back of his neck, bringing Mikkel forward so their foreheads could rest against each other. She breathed a few times, slow and even, attempting to hide her sadness as she kept her eyes closed or downcast so they could not be seen under her lashes. She had not needed Mikkel to see the tears threatening to fall.

 

" _Mikkel, life is just a waking dream_ ," She had said to him quietly, and at the time he had had no idea what it had meant. She was not cryptic for the sake of it, he remembered, so he figured she had said that because it had all been on him to decide what it meant. Years later, Mikkel knew what it meant, at least to him. Sidney's take on it was something that he knew he would never find out, and in some ways that made it worse.

 

To Mikkel, his fiancé’s words changed in meaning again and again. The first meaning he had found in them was centered on an immortal soul. He thought that she was implying how this world they were in was not the one that mattered and when it had come down to it any decision that Mikkel made would not matter. He had been a bit bitter for it because he had thought that it was an obscene thing for her to have said given what they had witnessed at the restaurant. What age and more horrors had taught him was that she had always been much smarter than him. Now Mikkel knew what she had meant. They had all been walking in dreams for so long that to pick out reality from it was impossible. He felt that every time he sobered, and every time he injected. He felt it every time he put a bullet into someone and knew that none of it was reality, but a waking nightmare for him and all involved. True reality, though, threatened to be even more frightening.

 

When he had been accepted, a mere two months after signing up, Sidney was still there. They had made love on the last night, honest, pure, and adoring, and though Mikkel had not known then, Sidney had. It would be the last time they were a couple. He had come back a few times, early in his training when occasionally he would get a day off, but it was never the same. They would have sex, kiss, sometimes just sit quietly, but what they had had before was already gone. Mikkel had almost no trouble sensing it, though it took a lot longer for him to really understand it, and after the first year of his service, he stopped visiting Sidney all together.

 

He had been sending his fiancé letters, but his active involvement in the military soon skyrocketed, and he eventually fond he no longer had the time or interest in keeping up the facade of still being in love with his almost wife. Instead he found a new love, and family, with his fellow soldiers. He found what he had thought was purpose, and dove harder into the service. He made a point to be good at his job, and his job in Sweden bloomed. He had been one of the soldiers rounding up Chinese supporters, carrying out whatever they told him to. He could remember one such incident that at the time had not been anything out of the ordinary.

 

Christianity had become a big deal in Sweden under America's rule, and though it was not illegal to worship other religions, there was a severe downside. Muslims were thought of as terrorists after some Middle Eastern countries joined the Chinese side of the war, and though not openly oppressed, the public viewed them with distrust. The Government saw them as villains. Raids on mosques were not rare, but they were pretty well held under the radar. Things that turned into more than just strong-arming Muslims were explained in the normal diplomatic tactics that the Americans used. They were covered up; lies bundled in truths that the normal people would just swallow. The cops never admitted to beating the young Muslim man to death, instead said that a drug-raged man had attacked them with a knife. They had not been attacked, Mikkel knew. A girl there, the young man's sister, had been on the phone. Even mobiles were tapped, and those files were prime targets for the hackers on the IRC boards. Luckily America had always sucked at closing the back door of their data, so they could all enjoy the terrible things the Government was actually doing.

 

The Jews, Pagans, Atheists, and all in-between had it no better. They were actually forced to tell their religion multiple times a day. Some places had even become segregated. _Only Christians_ became a common sight around cities, and not just in the upper section. America brought mistrust to Denmark, Sweden, and all their controlled territories. Some places, like Margie's hostel, did not care. Margie knew the truth, the American Government had taught her that lesson. She saw death and indignations, and she knew just how bad things had gotten. They were all in the pits and Mikkel only could see the way out through the sight of his scope.

 

Eventually Mikkel had showed up on the radar of his superiors in the army. They approached him with the chance of a promotion. They had told him it would be rigorous, but in the end he would be part of the elite guard that was doing more than repairing vehicles and waiting for a crisis. He would be out taking care of the scum that still eluded capture. It was the break that Mikkel had been waiting for, and several months later he was on the front lines in Sweden. Of course he took it, since it had been his dream, but the five months that he was in training were just blackness to him. Even then, years later and off most of the drugs, he could not remember how the training had gone. He assumed it had been part of it, that they would not let the soldiers know what had been done to them just incase one of them went renegade like Mikkel had. They were protecting their interests after all, and doing it surprisingly well.

 

After whatever training Mikkel had received, he came out with what he would consider to be a steroid rage. He would listen to his superior officers and them alone. With the grunts, like him, there was an easy and solid bond. It was almost psychic how they could sense each other and knew each other's movements before they even did them. How that happened continued to elude Mikkel, because that time period of a bit over a year only came to mind in snapshots. Most were blurry and told him little about the secret operations he had done, but he sensed that they had all been bad. At the time it was for the greater good. Years later and years older, Mikkel knew they were for the American agenda.

 

The first memory Mikkel had, and even it was just sand through his fingertips on bad days, was about an interrogation line. They had rounded up Chinese supporters, and in Mikkel's mind frame they were merely prisoners of war. An officer would interrogate each in turn, moving down the line. If they had nothing to say, which of course they did not because they were just average people, they would be executed on the spot. Mikkel never could remember seeing them, but he assumed there was mass graves somewhere, which held all those wrongly killed. If a civilian actually was a Chinese sympathizer they would be detained indefinitely, probably going through torture until they gave up whatever information the American higher ups wanted. Mikkel would not have been surprised if those people even told the Americans what they wanted to hear just to get death after the hell they were put through. The civilians, though, the people that were only guilty of speaking against the new regime, had a far more sudden death.

 

Mikkel remembered the line, and he was sure he would never forget it. It was a mix: people of all colors, creeds, and ages. There were even children clinging hard to their parent's hand and crying rivulets of tears as they begged to be saved. Eventually they would be scared into mostly silence, so only their breathy sobs came from their mouths. Mikkel had been in charge of moving down the line with his commander, putting the bullet in the brain of the person once the onslaught of questions had concluded.

 

He had not been sure exactly when it had happened, or even why, but clarity had crept upon him. He remembered eyeing a young man, no more than fifteen, who eyed him back with silent contempt. He did not answer a question, did not make a sound through the ordeal, but only glared at Mikkel with scathing hatred. Eventually the officer got sick of the braveness the boy showed, and signaled for Mikkel to eliminate him. Though his mind had cleared, his body still reacted almost Pavlovian. He raised his pistol and put a bullet through the boy who crumpled backward from the force. The rest of the line was the same, and though Mikkel wished he had turned the gun on all the soldiers there and had told the prisoners to run, he had not. He was weak and conditioned, and though he had begun to realize that it was wrong, he could not break away from the people that held such a grip on him.

 

He had become a trained dog, and it took some time for Mikkel to break away from that. He realized slowly that the eighteen regulated glasses of water a day was what had been the major cause of his blackouts. On top of that there were pills and vials of Opal. He cut cold turkey, hiding his unused drugs to not alert anyone to his slow awakening. He fell violently ill for a period, but once he began to recover, he made his move.

 

Escape was not easy, but Mikkel had used his recovery time to plan his breakout. It involved a lot of running, and though his body had protested heavily, he still remembered how to stomach the pain. For weeks after he hid, primarily in sewers and dark alleys in the bad parts of town, but no soldiers ever found him. He was AWOL in the world's most powerful military ruler's back yard, and somehow they never found him. Mikkel had never really been sold on his good luck, assuming after awhile they had just decided to use him some other way than a soldier, but he never had solid evidence for that theory. He had dug the GPS surveillance chip out of his palm and left it in the medical ward, but he always assumed they still could track his movements. For months he tested that, slowly returning to society in small ways that grew longer and more adventurous as time went on. When he was more or less certain that they were not tracking his movements with soldiers that would shoot first and request permission for use of deadly force later, he went back to Denmark.

 

Two and a half years after he had left Sidney, he did not exactly expect a warm welcome, but what he found in her stead was worse. The section of the city they had lived in had fallen to the way side, and vagrants lived in every abandoned store and building. His apartment, the one with fresh flowers and bright paint had become dust strewn and trashed. It looked like someone had forcibly entered his old home and looted the place, but he found no body or bloodstain. He did not find Sidney on the floor, and for that he was thankful. He hoped she had gotten out before it went to hell, but the cynicism he seemed to have gained while in the service told him she had not. He did not see the body, but that meant nothing. Mikkel could not try to track her down, and he assumed she would not have wanted him to anyway. With what he had done, with what grew inside of his as a dark and looming beast, he could never offer her the life that she deserved. If she were still alive, she probably would already have been notified of his death. That was how the Americans dealt with AWOL and MIAs, by informing their families they were dead. If they were ever recovered, they would be executed anyway.

 

Again Mikkel went into hiding, but no longer for his own safety. The lack of drugs made him a time bomb and the crushing realization that he may have killed his bride to be with his selfishness made him unsafe to the public. He scrounged and moved in the dark, heading back to Sweden with ideas of revenge splitting apart his being. He knew it would be a suicide mission, going back to the base, but he would have had it no other way at that time. He wanted to shake the core of the American power in Europe, and to do that he decided he needed explosives.

 

His first saving grace came three years after he had joined the American army. With his solo mission hatched in his mind, Mikkel slipped from his seclusion to procure explosives. They were hard to come by, but he had luckily made a few acquaintances in his time in the sewers. He had not been the only person to go AWOL over the years, and though relationships with other ex-soldiers was strained at best, the whisperings and late night meetings eventually told him where to get C4 and wiring. It was from a group called Molious that was very rarely mentioned by name and more with vague hand gestures. They had stuff that was impossible to get from normal means, and Mikkel sought them out with the intent to buy.

 

It was not easy finding someone that actually knew how to get in contact with Molious because they were as underground as one could get, but eventually an old soldier, one that hailed from the Swedish Guard before the Chinese War, took him in. Mikkel's first impression of the operation was poor, and after a brief chat with the person selling him the explosives, he felt no better about their chances.

 

The exchange happened outside of Stockholm, about fifty kilometers and in the middle of a large dead zone with plenty of avenues for escape. The merchant, a young woman by the name of Maria, brought armed guards, but they were baby-faced and Mikkel knew that in a pinch he could kill them all. That had made him feel better, actually, about the transaction because Molious obviously was not a front for the Government attempting to trap AWOL soldiers. Mikkel knew they were actually a resistance that was so poorly outmatched that it was sad.

 

Maria knew what she was doing, but did not give her young and inexperienced companions a second look. Mikkel, though, could only think about how the kids would die during their entire exchange. They were hurriedly trained, ill equipped, and too new to the world to be effective in a high stress battle. Mikkel knew that the heartless soldiers still under the thumb of the American Government would gun down those kids. So, in the middle of Maria's pitch about the payload of each block, he spoke up about it.

 

"You brought guards for protection, but I'm pretty sure they can't protect you from anything," He commented, and Maria stopped mid-word. She looked at him sternly for several seconds before she shifted her shotgun onto her shoulder. She looked at the guards right next to her before eyeing those out on a further parameter, almost as if she had not noticed them before.

 

"They're good enough in a jam," She commented back, not with mirth, but almost with a resignation to her lie. Mikkel did not buy it, and it was not hard to because there was no real conviction in her tone.

 

"How many have you lost this year?" He asked slowly and quietly. He understood what broke morale, and they were doing the best they could with as little as they had. Resistance cells, like Molious, did not have an unlimited number of soldiers. To them it had to have seemed like the American Government had the resources and manpower to wipe them off the map. The common soldier did not need to be reminded of the odds that they were more than likely going to die on a mission than return home, and for that they kept their voices toned low.

 

"How many did you lose this year?" She snidely shot back, and Mikkel understood. It was not the soldier count that mattered as much as the headway. Neither of them had the success rate they wanted, whether as a solo ordeal or as a group effort against the Government. They were both in the shit pile, so to speak.

 

"We don't have the resources to train them. We have a few instructors for the amount of soldiers we get, and they're kids, I know. If it were my way they'd get years of training before we even let the tikes touch a pistol, but we need people on the field. You understand that, that's why you're here." She sighed and rested her foot on the box of explosives, looking down at the dirt. Her words were little encouragement for what the future of the resistance held. "You're going to go out there and wage a one man crusade, and that's your own damn perdition, but what we need in this group is ex-military like you to show the kids how it's done."

 

It had not exactly been an offer to join Molious, and Mikkel no longer had the heart to aid the freedom fighters. He said no more on the subject and bought his goods, retreating to his solitude once again. He constructed his bombs by candlelight and scouted guard posts and personnel changes by night. He planned to blow the base while most soldiers were sleeping. It was a coward’s attack, but Mikkel knew he would never get close enough in broad daylight, and the Americans were too pompous then to assume the opposition would result to suicide guerilla style attacks. They were mighty and powerful, and Mikkel planned to be like the overlooked ant.

 

When it was time, when he had the bombs prepped, cut the wired fence, and was in the base, he suddenly found his humanity again. It was not for the soldiers, no, but for the groups, like Molious, that would get the backlash of his deeds. He would be dead, would take a number of soldiers with him, but Molious would be hunted, and more young people would die. Even those suspected of being affiliated with the attack would be rounded up and executed, just like Mikkel used to do to mothers, fathers, and children. People, like the ex-Swedish Guard that took him to Molious, would be outed and executed, if not tortured to death. It was the first emotion Mikkel had felt in a long time that was not hate, and he had to pause and swallow it back down in order to not get caught as he retreated from the base.

 

Upon reconnecting with Molious, Mikkel returned the explosives to Maria. She had obviously been confused; rather surprised to see Mikkel still alive, and he did not break it to her gently when he told her he wanted to join their operation. It was not the simplest move, actually a lot harder than joining the American military, but Mikkel's new found humanity thought it was worth it. He was interviewed extensively, left locked in a cell for days, had numerous background checks done and redone, but was eventually cleared to join. The last thing he had to do was meet with the founders of Molious.

 

Blindfolded and purposefully carted around more than he had to be, Mikkel eventually ended up in a dimly lit room. There were three men and a woman at a long table, backlit as so no distinguishing features about them were revealed. They were not as hard on Mikkel as their soldiers had been, but they were strict nonetheless. It was controlled distrust, something that only years of military service could teach someone. There were hints of pleasantries in their conversation, but they never spoke to each other. Any communication between the four members of the table was done through written notes, but even that was rare. They made sure of his allegiance, that he had not been listed AWOL in attempt to have an American spy amongst their ranks, made him demonstrate proficiency with weapons (blanks of course), and finally questioned his character. They did not need a loose cannon, and Mikkel played the part of an entirely sound-minded man.

 

He never saw their faces at that meeting, but once they had talked amongst themselves in another room, they granted him entry into their organization. Maria told him later that normal soldiers, the grunts of their operations and even those leading the grunts, rarely, if ever, met with the founders. Mikkel had been a very special circumstance, and though he felt no pride in that, he knew that his skill set would help them out.

 

Mikkel knew a lot more about the new tactics the Government used than the old ex-militaries that taught the soldiers of Molious. He trained them, who then trained the group leaders, who then trained the grunts. Mikkel had refused to be put on a pedestal, keeping himself clear of most interactions for his first year in the organization, but after rediscovering drugs and discovering which cocktails eased his blood thirst, he became more hands on. Eventually, when all of his methods were handed down the chain of command, Mikkel found his home again in a soldier's life. He no longer made himself more than he was, and there was some freedom in that. Mikkel was good at killing, and with a chance to turn his scope on those that actually deserved to die, he felt nothing, and it was ideal. Soldiers were not supposed to enjoy pulling the trigger, and those in Molious were never overly thrilled about it (though some of the younger ones played a kill count game) so it was easy to hide his stoicism and lack of human emotion behind the dislike of taking another human life. He figured he had most of the group fooled, but Maria never seemed to be.

 

Maria never pried, never asked questions, but the way she looked at Mikkel with just the hint of pity in her eyes, made him figure that she had some idea. He did not doubt that she had dealt with fractured soldiers before, young men and women that watched their loved ones get killed before they decided to join the resistance. Fractured was normal, it showed a life lived under oppressive military rule, but Mikkel was beyond that and he knew it. He was shattered and there were many pieces missing, some that he could not fake. His status in the group assured him solitude inside the base, and that helped to conceal the restless nights and the drug use. He played it under the table and most people were none the wiser, but he figured he never fooled Maria entirely. She never chided him, though, never told him to give up the drugs and start sitting out missions. It was probably because she either knew, or just assumed, that they were the only things keeping Mikkel going. They were.

 

On his twenty-fourth birthday, one that came and went with no recognition from Mikkel, he approached the founders of Molious once more. They were no longer shrouded in harsh light, no longer indistinguishable silhouettes, but flesh and blood men and women. He came to them with a request he assumed would end his career with the organization; that would put their group in too much jeopardy to allow. He wanted the freedom to carry out his own missions, hit his own targets, as solo side projects.

 

There had been much discourse between the founders, one that went on for days before Mikkel was eventually called back. The woman, a dark skinned Muslim that had been put on the chopping block for her beliefs, was the one that revealed their decision to him. He would be allowed to act independently from the organization as long as word of it never got back to anyone with lesser rank than themselves. He would leave without notifying anyone outside of them, and would return with the same silence. They had been getting regular status updates from Maria, they told him, and they understood just what he was searching for in the solitude of missions. She informed him that she doubted he would find what he was looking for, but that if it eased the pain some, if it made him more willing to conform to their rules while on a Molious campaign, then they would allow him to do it. Still, missions would be cleared through them in a full briefing, and he would report to them upon his return. They did not ask about the drugs or what had made him as broken as he was, but yet trusted his determination and professionalism. Mikkel never made them regret their decision.

 

Some assassination targets he had received through the founders, but most he came up with himself. He took trips out of the base periodically, to check on the state of affairs. If someone were getting too boisterous in their pro-America campaign, then Mikkel would arrange to put them down. If civilians were getting strong-armed, Mikkel would kill their attackers. He planned his targets out, but what he always hoped, what he prayed for, was a chance to get retribution on those that changed him into the killer he had become. People called him the Good Soldier, but he was no more than the great destroyer.


	5. Vessel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 5 Warnings: Language, Drug Use**
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> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
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> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possessions)
> 
> Song for Chapter 5 Vessel: [Star Spangled Banner - Jimi Hendrix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSczLOOm59A)

Oliver's day with Molious was very informational, and for how confused he had been, the new knowledge seemed to have multiplied it tenfold. He had been given some time to acclimate to the base before Maria took him outside of it in order to show him the world she described. Again there was a lot of walking through dimly lit tunnels that smelled musty, but eventually they surfaced inside of a city. They came out of a hatch door in the back room of a store. It was not an impressive store, actually far more run down and barren than any store Oliver had seen before, but a store nonetheless. There were not many items on the shelves, and though there had been an attempt at cleaning, a thin layer of dust clung to everything.

Maria spoke quickly and quietly to what Oliver assumed was the owner. He glanced at Oliver, and though the young man knew that they were not taking about him, the other man's gaze made him feel that the vague pleasantries they exchanged were really just a code for something else. The man said nothing in response to Maria's hellos, thank you's, and stuttered comments on the weather. Eventually he just took the money Maria had set on the counter for him, and turned his back on both of them. He had never said a single word, and though Oliver was confused, Maria signaled that it was time for them to leave.

Just outside of the door, Oliver paused. It looked like they stood in an arid climate, and the heat of day hit him like a wall. It was not humid, but a dry heat that was similar to Arizona's weather. If it had all been a very elaborate prank, Oliver thought, then he was going to be pissed. However, the crumbling cityscape around him reminded Oliver of no part of Arizona's skyline. He turned to look at Maria who had watched him silently since they left the store.

"Stockholm," She supplied in order to help Oliver place the area, but Oliver's brows only creased in response. He had been to Stockholm often, and it looked nothing like what he saw before him. Stockholm had trees and parks. It was green with red-bricked buildings, smoothly paved streets, and a port somewhere off to the west. It had never been coated in a fine layer of dust without any grass in sight.

"No it's not," He told her, and she eyed him back with a mixture of confusion and sympathy. Of course he had told her about his world, but she really had not been ready for the complete disagreement he showed for her explanation. Shifting just slightly, Maria gestured that they should walk and talk. She was not necessarily nervous about coming across soldiers, but she figured that if Oliver saw more than just one run down street, it would be possible for him to place the shell of a city as really Stockholm.

"I understand what you described to me," Maria told him in an even and nurturing tone, "But things are very different than you explained, Oliver. They're not at all what your memories tell you are the truth." He did not understand that, and still had a feeling that some wool was being pulled over his eyes, but she did not really seem like she had an agenda. She seemed honest, and more than wiling to take however long she needed to in order to give Oliver some sort of closure. He shuffled with her, stride stunted by Maria's walking speed, but he took the slower pace as a chance to look around. He could see the similarities to the architecture he remembered from Stockholm, but it had never looked so entirely neglected. It appeared war-torn, just as the street the day prior had. Sure, it was not riddled with bullet holes, nor were there explosives detonating around him, but Oliver got the vague sense that that had not been far off. Instead, it had been the inability to repair that kept the area so run down.

Maria explained to Oliver that the people living around there barely had enough money to survive, let alone manage any upkeep. Previous pride in their city had been thrown to the way side in favor of just one meal every day. It had not mattered at all what their homes looked like if they were dead, so buildings crumbled and windows remained broken from where looters smashed them in. They were policed effectively only when there was some hint of anti-Government activity, and what were then considered petty crimes were ignored for the most part. As long as no hint of action against America came on the radar, the poor were left to rot.

Maria explained to Oliver about the people first. There was no short supply of them to look at as they walked down the avenues because many were set up in dirty tent camps in alleys. Of course most of the buildings were inhabited, but there were far more people in the city than shelters to home them. People from all over flocked to the city because of various reasons. For one, work outside of the city was almost unheard of. There were mines and factories, but hiring was done in the city limits and unless the factory was more than an hour away, people were bussed to their work. Utilities outside of the cities had been shut down years ago as well. Maria's theory on that was that if there were lots of people spread all over the place, they were harder to monitor and rule over. If many were crammed close, like cattle, it was much easier to keep a head count and watch their movements. Lastly, there was the dead earth and the rancid water. Nothing outside of the Government run water supply was drinkable anymore, and since people could not grow crops or raise livestock, they were forced to retreat into the city where the American Government shipped in supplies.

They headed toward the port while Maria told him about the way the world crumbled. The war: the big Chinese versus American conflict that turned everything to hell for all the countries in the world. She told him about how America saw their access to water and natural ores as a way to strengthen their war machine. Factories had popped up everywhere to refine, to build, to repair whatever America needed for her noble war. That included, but was not limited to, guns, tanks, aircrafts, and munitions. It was dangerous work, and America’s OSHA did not follow to the authoritarian-ruled military colonies of the United States. People died and were hurt, and were left to die because they had no measly income to buy their families any sort of food once unable to work. As the land was dug and the factories churned out products, the waste was discarded without responsibility. Carbon emission laws were ignored for cost and simplicity, and the UN, or what was left of it after countries refused to talk to one another, could find no pedestal to stand on while World War Three raged all around them. Scientists and environmentalists had shouted, but it all fell on deaf ears because the bigger problem was the protection of possessions. Even liberties were not spared, as the people in Europe found out.

When they finally arrived at the pier, Oliver saw with his own eyes the plague of destruction America had brought to his homeland. The water of the channel ways had become a muddy deep brown, one that Oliver swore bordered on violet in color. Oil clung to its surface in oddly drawn out patches, and about a half a mile upstream sat a large factory that spewed smoke into the orange mist-like sky. Oliver looked at the sky hard for the first time, and Maria followed his gaze as she stood by his side.

"Most people," She began, solemn, "Have never seen anything other than the smog pollution. The sun, the moon, and the stars are just fairy tales now to most. Actually, with your age, you probably hadn't seen them since you were two." Oliver tore his eyes away from the fire-like sky to look at her. He knew exactly what the sky looked like, and saw it as a chance to prove to her that he really was not the Oliver from the files Mikkel had laid in front of him.

"I know about the sun and how it looks on a clear day, y'know. I can tell you about stars too. And the moon; how it changes shapes and how the sun reflects off of it and that's how we see it. I know all those things because I just saw them, so what does that say about me?" Maria turned her attention to Oliver when he had begun talking, and slowly, very slowly, a smile appeared on her face. It was not wide, nor was it joyful, but it was a hint of something that Oliver had not known the word for in any language.

"Says that you're pretty damn interesting to me, is what it says." She commented as she clapped Oliver on the shoulder, and he did not miss the wince on her face. She had used the arm she had been shot through, and it obviously hurt. He was honestly surprised that she had even considered herself well enough to be out with him given the wound, and Oliver thought that spoke highly of her abilities on the battlefield. He figured he would have been curled up, moaning and gripping his shoulder, if he had received the same wound, so he asked about it.

"It must hurt… where you got shot and all." Maria smiled and gingerly lowered her arm. She reached into the pocket of her jacket to remove a vial of black liquid. Oliver gave her his full attention at that, thinking it looked a lot like the festering water not far from them. She turned the tube over as if showing it off to Oliver before she finally told him about it.

"Called Opal. Kind of an everything sort of drug. We keep a supply of it because, well… not like we're going to be walking into a pharmacy to be getting something for the A1’s lodged in our shoulders, right?" Oliver's brows creased again at her explanation as she readied the vial for an injection. He watched as she popped the cap for the needle and used it to arm the pump. She was a pro at it, for whatever that meant.

"So it's a street drug?" He asked, which got a small shrug from her good shoulder before she rolled up her sleeve and injected herself. She did not grimace but Oliver did notice her jaw lock for a fraction of a second before she returned to seeming normalcy. She blinked twice before she pocketed the used syringe and rolled her injured shoulder slightly.

"Like I said, not getting the legit stuff, so we're kind of stuck using what we can get. But it's not that bad, really." She paused, as if considering how to approach the subject of drug use to someone so completely appalled by it. Drugs were just normal in their world, something that really did not even raise an eyebrow anymore, so to explain that to someone already out of their depth seemed like a cruel thing to do to the kid, but reality rarely was neat.

"Did your world have cocaine and heroine?" She asked and Oliver nodded slowly. She could at least use that as a starting point. "So did ours for a long time. But then the world started to turn into this, what with global warming and the destruction of climate preservation. America pretended they beat those hard drugs, but really nothing could grow any more, so the Cartels couldn't make the stuff. Instead we got Opal, which is synthetic. That means it's made in labs." Oliver knew that and urged her to continue. Sure he was not advocating drug use, but he did have a suspicion that lab engineered drugs were probably worse that stuff that could be grown. Still, he let her talk.

"At first we all thought Opal was the Cartels’ new drug, but after awhile we noticed that the same effects were in the medicines we were getting from America. What they were really doing was drugging us any time we took anything. Opal can mix with any drug and not destroy it, and soon Opal was being sold on the street. It has a lot of effects itself too, including infection killing and pain killing. So we work with some drug dealers and get it for our wounded soldiers."

"Does Mikkel know?" Oliver asked. He had seemed very high and mighty about the workings of Molious, and he doubted the man would have stood for the freedom fighters siding with common drug dealers. Maria laughed, a little too pleasantly for Oliver's taste, but he just assumed it was the drug and not her real feelings on the matter.

"Chief is allowed his position for reasons well beyond me. He's got some favor in the group and it goes beyond just keeping our young alive longer, but what he doesn't have is executive power. He may think his status is above mine, but it's not. No, he doesn't know, but then again he's never once been hurt in duty, so he's never had the chance to find out." Oliver frowned heavily, not sure how to take the secrecy. From the way she spoke, it seemed as if they ran the same way an overthrowing government would. Only those in power knew what was going on, and those not were left in the dark and allowed to bleed. He did not enjoy that at all and said so.

"You misunderstand," She told Oliver quickly, the jovial tone suddenly gone. "If we had other ways we would do them, but there really is no choice. With how many are still wounded through all of Molious, not just our group, we'd have more soldiers in bed dying than out in the field fighting. We need medicine and we can't get it from real doctors. All we can do is buy street Opal and make it work for us." Oliver understood that part, but the lies were what tripped him up. He got defensive, and even though he was in no way a part of Molious, he still felt a sense of betrayal.

"Then why hide it if it is the right thing to do? Why don't you tell everyone that you get it from a dealer and that that's what is helping everyone not die?" She frowned more at Oliver's questioning. It was not a defensive frown, but one of concern. She was concerned for Oliver because he showed a complete inability to understand the world. Maybe, she mused internally, he really was not from their world.

"Opal, Oliver, comes with a cross to bear. It's a heavy one that can crush people. If everyone knew that they were getting Opal injections to ease the pain, to clear their minds, then we'd have a bunch of addicts in our ranks."

"And you're not an addict?" Oliver accused. He had no knowledge base to stand on, but if it were as bad as she said-- if there was such a great chance that those that knew they were getting Opal would turn to it more and more-- than how could she handle the temptation? The tone of the question was not lost on Maria, but she refused to take it for how Oliver meant it. He was a scared and confused kid that apparently knew nothing, and she refused to let the accusation be taken as hurtful.

"I'm not at all saying I'm not an addict, because I don't believe in lying to myself, but I'm a different addict than what I've seen others become." Oliver did not understand, and Maria knew that, so she continued without letting him cut in. "Most people, and I mean most, use Opal as an escape. It makes them think in a straight line and turn out the noises in their head that threaten to beat them down. I use it as a reason to keep on fighting. What I see and feel on Opal is different. There is no straight line for me, but a wholeness that reminds me I'm not just fighting for myself, not just for Molious, but also for humanity and the planet. It was for everything, everyone, that we killed, have been killed, or will kill." Oliver still did not understand, and expressed it desperately. She had not made much sense to him since the topic of drugs had come up, and though he wanted to see her point of view, he just could not. Instead of answering directly, Maria pointed to the putrid water.

"Who do you think did that, Oliver?" She asked, but for the moment it was rhetorical and she raised her hand to silence Oliver's reply. "And who do you think killed all the grass and trees? Who made it impossible to grow anything outside of greenhouse farms?"

"The American and Chinese Governments," Oliver said when finally allowed to answer, a heavy frown on his lips. "They started this war and without it then the world would still be good." Maria smirked slightly and motioned with her head that they should return to the city streets. They were the only ones out by the port and if anyone took notice of them, their excursion could very well go south within moments. Oliver was unhappy about her almost dismissive treatment of his answer, but moved with her instead of protesting. After a few feet, she began to answer.

"Most people think that, Oliver. They think that this is all America's fault, or it's all China's fault. What it isn't, however, is their own fault. Everyone. No one wants to take the blame for the way the world is now, but the truth is Earth's been dying long before America and China decided to have a pissing contest. This dead world is all of our faults, and that's what the Opal made me see." Oliver did not quite get what she was going for. Sure, they had all been dumb for a long time about what the pollution was doing to the world, but it seemed like this world also had anti-pollution laws in effect. They had been trying and then big Governments had screwed it up. He still wanted to argue that the majority of the blame was on them.

"But, you said America made all these factories, made quarries for ore, had pretty much made it impossible for laws to cut down on pollution because the war was happening. Doesn't that mean it's mostly their fault?" He had calmed significantly as they moved slightly off the topic of drugs, but he knew that he was not going to let Maria steer him from that line of conversation for long.

"They did, and I'm not at all saying that they don't deserve more blame than, say, you or I who maybe littered a few times, but none of us have clean hands on this one, Oliver. Well, none of us except for you, maybe. I mean, if you really are an alien just seeing this world for the first time." Maria's jovial tone had returned and Oliver felt belittled a bit. He pouted at having his irrational assessment of the day prior thrown back at him, but he also felt he deserved it a little. They fell into silence for a few minutes before Oliver brought the line of questioning back to the drugs. He understood that the Earth was essentially dead, he got that Maria blamed everyone for that, including herself, but what he did not understand was what that had to do with her addiction.

"So, if you're not using the drugs to escape the responsibility you feel for being part of killing the world, then what are you using them for?" She had said that she did not use them as an escape, so he wondered just what she did use them for. Again Maria let silence break apart Oliver's question and her answer as they walked farther into the rundown city. Oliver had begun slowly to recognize what once held a resemblance to his Stockholm when Maria finally answered.

"Opal comes with some side effects that I'm not really sure the American scientists knew about until after it was out. It doesn't happen to everyone, but to some of us, we feel things." She paused, backtracking just slightly to remind Oliver of the usual effects of the drug. "Normally Opal makes things just click into place. Like, every action is just causation, almost like walking. You take the first step, and the next just becomes an automatic follow up to the first. Then there's a third, fourth, fifth… No thought needed, no planning, just going. You lose fear and inhibitions, and you just go. To people like me it does more, and that's the addiction I have." She paused in order to gauge Oliver's understanding. He understood the allure of action without thought because he experienced it often while playing hockey. He sensed movements and reacted before he really had the chance to think about it, and it was a soothing Zen-like state when it happened and it worked. He never would have turned to drugs for it though, but he guessed he had a comparable addiction to hockey in that sense.

"Well, what does it do to you?" He asked after a moment to show he was ready to hear more. Maria continued, tone even and facial expression matching. She no longer smiled, but she did not frown either. She acted like it was a self-determined burden and Oliver assumed it was.

"To me I feel a higher power. I wouldn't necessarily say it’s god or anything like that, but something similar. The first time it happened I was heavily under, an addict just like the others, but after that time it changed. Every time I have a hit I remember that, or maybe I feel it all a new and I'm just reminded how otherworldly it feels. It's like I can sense the Earth's pain, and I feel responsible." Maria took a deep breath as if she had been feeling the weight at that moment, which was not unlikely since she had just shot up with the drug. "I hear things, I go to other places in my mind and I swear, Oliver, that I can see how it's all going to go down. I've seen how this world dies under hands, and not just our own. Do you understand?" Oliver was not entirely sure he did, but he knew what hallucinations were. If she had trips and thought they were some divine calling, then that seemed like a pretty deep addiction and not very different from the other addicts, but she had been nice about it and Oliver strived to return the courtesy.

"And it helps you just keep going?" He asked carefully, and Maria paused in her stride. Oliver hesitantly stopped a step later to turn and regard her. She was frowning again, but it was more at herself than at Oliver.

"It helps me educate the others. It helps me explain to them that we're not just fighting for the restoration of our liberties, but for the survival of all mankind. Things can't keep up like this, Oliver, because with this course of action death is the only end point, and I don't just mean in a hail of bullets either. I mean the extinction of humanity." Oliver would not have gone that far because what seemed to have been happening was that people had found ways to still grow food on the dead earth. Water was still produced some how and distributed, if only in cities. Sure, in hundreds of years they could be able to rehabilitate the earth to maybe start growing things again, but in the mean time it hardly looked like the end was nigh.

Oliver did not argue, however. He simply nodded as if he understood and they both continued to walk again. It was not that Oliver refused to believe the woman on drugs, but more so that he seemed to not really understand most things about the world around him. He felt like a foreigner in his own country, and that was probably the most unsettling feeling he ever felt. He was entirely unsure how to handle his own existence at that point and though Maria had done a fair job on distracting him, she had not completely erased his feeling of being out of place. Every silence brought it back tenfold, and finally after minutes of slow strolling, Oliver spoke about it.

"So, with all of this craziness, why do you think I don't know anything about this place?" Maria smiled again, quickening her pace to move in front of Oliver. She stopped and forced him to as well, and Oliver could only eye the shorter woman with confusion. She did not speak right away, but only regarded the young man with a mixture of interest and mischief.

"Let's take a rest," She said after a few moments, easing Oliver toward a building. There were a lot of people sitting around in the hazy heat and any sort of shade had already been taken, but Maria seemed to know a secret place. For all her urging that they rest, she led Oliver down side streets and back alleys for several minutes before finally coming to a stop at a dead end. Oliver followed in silence because he had no urge to ask her where they were going. Instead he regarded the people they passed. Most kept their heads down, but Oliver could tell that they watched him back from under their lashes and from the corners of their eyes. A few people sat in the dead end; conversing quietly in English once they gathered Maria and Oliver were not there to spy on them.

Maria sat on the dirty cement of the ground, reaching into a small hip pack to produce two bottles of water. They held only a cup of liquid, but Oliver guessed Maria assumed they had not needed much for just a stroll around the city. He took one when offered; drinking from it calmly though his mouth had been dry and tasted slightly of the dirt that whipped up from time to time. If it really had been November, Oliver knew that there would be frost on the ground and a cold wind blowing through the city. Instead it was hot and oppressive, which gave a large credibility to Maria's claim of global warming. Eventually they both finished their water and Maria smiled brightly at Oliver. He watched her curiously, unsure what he had done to receive the bright smile.

"So, you wanna know where I think you fit in, right?" She asked, her Swedish easy and slightly lazy. Oliver nodded and handed back the empty water bottle when she reached for it. "Well, the water was a test of that." That left Oliver confused and he expressed as much. Water really should not have been a test. He was thirsty, she offered, and he accepted. It had been cut and dry to Oliver, and Maria said that that was exactly what the big deal was.

"America's propaganda says that water from any source other than tap is dangerous. Everyone knows that and everyone believes it. Of course I mean everyone but us." Oliver glanced over toward those that shared the small space with them and noticed that they had gained their attention. He was not sure if it was Maria's words or if it had actually been because they had drunk from bottles, but their stares were slightly nerve-wracking.

"Well, maybe it was water from the tap in a bottle?" Oliver asked. There had been no seal on the bottles, probably due to their repeated use, but he had not wondered where the water had come from. He had simply drunk it, and he slowly realized that was Maria's point.

"Most anyone, when offered a drink, asks where it has come from. With how scarce clean water is we've become more hesitant about accepting things from strangers. If a person does not see the water poured from a tap, they assume it's poisoned, but really it's the other way around."

"Tap water is poison?" Oliver asked with a tone of fear in his voice. If most people believed that tap water was safe, and really it was poisoned, that meant that there had to be people dying in droves. He could not imagine that anyone could overlook that. Maria spared a glance over toward the others in the area and they quickly glanced away. She apparently held more power than Oliver did to make people forget to notice their carryings on.

"Not exactly poison, but close. It's actually drugs in the water. Stuff is called Parepin and was put in there years ago. It keeps people calm and complacent, which is how the Government wants them, you see." Oliver understood that, but what he did not understand was how anyone could get away with it. There seemed that there would be people that would have noticed, like scientists testing water purity. He knew it would be a stupid question, but he asked about it anyway.

"Those that noticed and tried to go public were made to disappear. After about a hundred people dropped off the radar, other scientists stopped trying to fight it. They drank the Kool-Aid if you will." She smirked at her own joke, but Oliver found it anything but funny. The mentality of if you cannot beat them, join them seemed so out of place when up against a Government purposefully drugging civilians, and Oliver was appalled. He figured, if in the same boat, he would have done everything in his power to let people know about the danger of drinking the water.

"Did anyone succeed? Y'know, tell people that it was dangerous?" Maria crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall of the alley. She seemed no longer burdened by her bullet wound, acting like it was not even there to bother her. Oliver assumed the Opal really did work.

"Sure, a lot of them managed to tell people not to drink the water, but what's the word of a spattering of scientists against the word of the American Government? At that time most people were thrilled that America was here protecting us and treated the scientists as raving lunatics or, worse, Chinese sympathizers. Not hearing from them again was what people wanted, and it worked for the Government too, because it nipped the problem in the bud." She gestured with her head toward the others in the space. "Now if someone started preaching that the water was poisoned, some people would listen. They'd think about how little fight they had, how they just suffered in dirty alleys instead of going out and trying to make a better world for themselves." Oliver caught on by the end of her speech that she actually was, at that moment, preaching to the masses. She was doing what the scientists had tried to do, only without the data to support it. However, if they really were as complacent as Maria suggested, then there was a good chance they would take her at her word alone. Molious, Oliver slowly realized, was more than just gunners.

"But wait!" Oliver said after a few moments of quiet contemplation. "I took a shower! Does that… does that mean I have the drug in me?" Maria smiled at Oliver's worry and shook her head slightly, a burble of a laugh that died before actually forming.

"No, Oliver. We run completely filtered. The Parepin is removed from the water and then we run a closed circuit. Not saying it's the healthiest in other regards, but we try hard to kill all bacteria and other byproducts. Not the easiest thing, though, because of how hard it is to get materials, but at least it keeps the base off the radar of the Gov. I'm sure you can only imagine what it would be like if they saw our massive water bill every month." She chuckled again, but Oliver still found none of it funny. Molious ran their own filtering system, while normal people were drugged into submission. Oliver understood that they had to pick their battles, but with so many people left to the whims of a Government so desperate for control, it seemed unfair.

"Alright, so what did all of that had to do with why I know nothing about what's happening here?" Oliver asked. He finally brought the questioning back around to his real worry, and Maria regarded him silently for a few more moments. Oliver was unsure exactly what ran through her head, but by the look on her face he assumed it to either be deciding if she wanted to tell him the truth or not, or if she really had an answer for him at all. Slowly, after quite a bit of contemplation, she spoke. There was no more humor in her tone, and when she looked Oliver in the eyes he knew that what she was about to tell him was most definitely what she believed.

"I think, somehow, you accidentally ended up here." Oliver made a quizzical noise and his brows creased in confusion. Oh course, he thought, he ended up there by accident, but the real question had been how. It was no mystery to Oliver that he had been, and very possibly still was, where he had no business being, but just how he had gotten there was what was his worry. She continued seconds after her first words, not letting Oliver throw in a heavy No Shit to her observation.

"What I think happened to you, and I really mean this, is that some how our timelines got crossed, and you slipped from your reality to ours." Oliver did not exactly understand what she meant, but he got enough to understand that, in some part, she believed him.

"So you don't think I'm the Oliver in the file?" He asked, trying to keep the excitement from his voice, but the smile that tried to tug at his lips gave him away some. Maria did not squash his hope, but she did put a disclaimer on it.

"No, I don’t think the you right now is the Oliver in that file, but I think at some point you and he were the same." Another quizzical noise came from Oliver, so Maria explained further. "I think, out there, there are infinite universes. Every decision by every person ever is a different universe, and we have one for every choice. For instance…" Maria trailed off as she raised her right hand in the air. Oliver watched her for several seconds, entirely not understanding the gesture. She waited to see if he followed, and when sure no realization spread over Oliver's features she lowered her hand again and explained.

"For example, I had a choice there. In this universe I raised my right hand. In another universe that just came into being, I raised my left hand. Every single decision anyone could make, whether consciously or unconsciously, is a different universe. You, this you," She pointed at Oliver, "Came from a universe where America and China have not, or at least not yet, gone to war. You come from one where choices from everyone did not equal this outcome. Do you follow now?" Oliver digested the information slowly and eventually nodded. He did not completely understand, but he gathered that Maria figured he was not the soldier Oliver and that, maybe, his memories were not false. That he actually came from a different timeline and he did not just have some very strange amnesia.

"So, how do you think I ended up here if I'm really from another universe?" He asked cautiously. Maria watched him for several seconds, once again seemingly deciding how to handle the situation. Slowly she smiled and shrugged and for the first time since he met Maria, Oliver got the feeling she was not being entirely honest. He eyed her suspiciously, but as soon as he was about to ask her just what she was not telling him, sirens and alarms began to sound from some distance off. Every movement in the dead end stopped as all attention was turned to the noise. Then Maria moved, getting to her feet quickly and reaching for Oliver with her good arm.

"We have to go now," She told him, a hint of panic in her tone. The others in their hold fled quickly and Oliver accepted the help up. They no longer strolled leisurely around the shell of Stockholm, but with a pace that bordered on a jog from the shorter woman. They made their ways quickly and devoid of conversation back to the hatch in the back of the store, and into the tunnels that lead to the Molious headquarters. Oliver did not know exactly what the sirens were a prelude to, but by Maria's reaction, he could only assume it would bode ill for them.


	6. Me, I'm Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 6 Warnings: Character Deaths, Violence, Gore, Drug Use, Language, Torture**
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> 
> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possessions)
> 
> Song for Chapter 6 Me, I'm Not: [Away From the City - The Living End](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hChlGKOW4ow)

Sirens to Oliver meant an emergency. It probably meant the same thing there, he reasoned, but it also seemed to carry some extra weight Oliver did not understand. Something that made Maria not leisurely stroll along side him, but lead him with determination and just a few backwards glances. Once they slipped into the tunnel below the store nothing changed. The danger, whether real or imagined, did not stop above ground.

 

Oliver was accustomed to running, so he had no problem keeping pace with Maria as they jogged back to Molious. He wanted to ask her why they were in a hurry, why they needed to be below ground because of sirens that sounded some distance away, but Maria had not exactly withheld information from him before, and that caused Oliver to shut up and keep up. He figured whatever it meant was on a need to know basis, and at that moment he did not need to know anything other than to keep moving.

 

It took a quarter of the time it had taken them to leave Molious for them to return back to the base. When they did, the base was a flurry of activity. Oliver really had no idea what to do with himself, so he stuck close to Maria as she moved around.

 

"What's happening?" She asked as they both entered a large room toward the center of the base. It appeared to be a command center of sorts-- tables set end to end in a long row with chairs around it. There were also some other tables and chairs, most occupied by people that worked furiously on tasks. Some of the surfaces held computers, much like the data room Oliver had been in earlier, and there were soldiers seated at most of them. Additionally, plenty of TVs hung on the walls. Some were dark; others with data readouts, but the ones that held the most attention from the room were playing news feeds. Though different voices spoke out from the TVs, they all spoke in almost perfect unison. It was scripted and ridged words, however not robotic in the least. There was emotion there, but not fear. Some were outraged, screaming with anger. Others sounded sad yet distant. It took Oliver several seconds to actually hear the words they were speaking and not just the strange fluctuations of tone.

 

They were talking about a terrorist attack on a ballpark. Oliver could not remember there ever being a ballpark in Stockholm, but he also could never remember there being a secret underground tunnel system, or a war either, so he took no real stock in his inability to remember a ballpark. Apparently there were explosives detonated, but only a few casualties. They touted the courage and swift reaction of the military as the reason for the almost insignificant loss of life that had happened that day. Oliver took that at face value, but Maria told him otherwise.

 

"Whoever did it planned not to kill people," She said softly from next to Oliver. He had been so caught up in watching the television that he had not heard her return to his side. He watched her with a hint of confusion before his attention turned to some pictures she held. They appeared to be printed from a broadcast. Oliver could recognize announcers as she showed him the still images of what had transpired. One of the men had been shot, and from the way he grabbed at his throat, Oliver could guess where.

 

"It was a show of force, not a massacre. Whoever did this could have blown the whole park to the ground, but hadn't. He had made a display of force instead of a slaughter."

 

"Someone from here?" Oliver asked, thoroughly unsure. He had not understood much of Molious and what it did, but it had seemed like just the sort of group that would put up a display of force and not one that would kill a bunch of people just out for an afternoon. Maria still held the pictures up but stared at Oliver instead of the images. It was almost as if she had not thought about it before, that someone from Molious probably could have done it, but Oliver thought too highly of her to make that claim.

 

"No one from Molious," She told Oliver slowly, as if maybe trying to lie to herself. Oliver wondered if any of them actually had any clue where Mikkel was, and if he could have done it. He had proven to be tactically capable the day before out on the streets, but an attack like that did not seem like something anyone would do while working directly with a group like Molious. They seemed to have run a tight ship, and that gave Maria's words more credit. "It would bring too much pressure to our organization. The Founders never would let something like this happen." Oliver had not meant to start any discontent, so he nodded and accepted Maria's reasoning. He shifted nervously, unsure how to precede any further in their conversation.

 

He had not thought about it before, the possibility that there were others in charge, but it made sense. There was no way that a group could function as smoothly as Molious seemed to without some form of upper command. Still the strangeness of never realizing that before was not lost on Oliver. He wondered if everyone knew about something as important as the Founders or if it was on a need to know basis, much like many other things seemed to be.

 

"So, what does all this mean?" He asked after a few seconds where it looked like Maria had been lost in thought. She took another few seconds of looking at the pictures before she finally answered him.

 

"This means our field trip is over and I need to do some work." Oliver understood why something like a terrorist attack not orchestrated by Molious would require her undivided attention, but the dismissive nature of her tone spoke more than Maria's words. Oliver felt woefully out of place again and shifted. He mumbled, half-formed words that even he was unsure of the meaning of, and began to leave the room. He had no idea what he should do, since Maria had been his only companion in the base thus far. Without her guiding hand he figured he would just walk around until someone forcefully put him where he belonged. Instead Maria stopped him and walked him out of the room herself.

 

The hall was still a flurry of activity and Maria stopped a man. He was just slightly taller than her, diminutive next to Oliver, and much older than either of them. His hair had gone beyond salt-and-peppered to a fine level of grey that had taken over his beard as well. He eyed Maria and Oliver with confusion before Maria spoke to him.

 

"Take Oliver to the bunks. Just… just keep your eyes on him, Jamison." The man grunted out a reply, obviously not thrilled about being on babysitting duty, but unable to dispute a direct order from Maria. Oliver felt a little bad for him because it seemed like the older man, full of wrinkles and scars, really wanted to be in the thick of whatever had gotten everyone so worked up. Oliver hoped that he could at least get the man to tell him exactly what all of it meant. With that goal in mind, Oliver followed the older man away with just one look over his shoulder toward Maria’s retreating form.

 

Oliver was grateful for a real bed to sit on, unlike the mattress he had slept poorly on the night before. He was grateful that he was no longer being treated like a prisoner as well, though with Jamison standing in the same room as him, Oliver had no delusions that he was a welcomed presence in their base quite yet. However, he hoped spending some time with a different member of the group would increase his credibility some.

 

"Can I ask you some questions?" Oliver muttered slowly, unsure if it was a good idea or not to break the silence Jamison initiated. The older man slowly glanced at him. Jamison’s arms were crossed, and he did not exactly turn to look at Oliver. Instead he just slightly shifted his gaze and eyed Oliver from the corner of them. He seemed to be in thought about Oliver's question for several seconds, before he finally sighed and dropped his posture. He turned to face Oliver fully, but he never really relaxed.

 

"As long as I don't think you're snooping for any information that you shouldn't have, fine." Oliver did not exactly know the guidelines of what was considered snooping or not, so he tried to phrase his first question as delicately as he could.

 

"I just… well, I don't really understand why someone not affiliated with Molious going out and blowing up a building is making everyone so nervous." Oliver figured he could have been a bit more low-key with his question, but nothing really came to mind given how little he understood. Sure, he was beginning to understand that things that were normal, taken for granted, back in his reality were not the same way here. He saw fear in eyes that just did not exist in his small world. He began to see tragedy in all forms and not just self-perceived injustices. He wondered if that was how it had been in the war-torn countries of his world.

 

"We're not as off the radar as you might think," Jamison started, his voice old and scratchy. He seemed like the type of man that would smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and would start each morning and end each night with a straight hard drink. Oliver, of course, had no real grounds for that observation. In reality, all he had was a tired looking man standing before him.

 

"What do you mean? Maria… she said that this place is all off the radar. That it's safe." The idea that Oliver might not be safe in a secret base when there was so much corruption outside of it made him nervous. He had learned a bit about the world, but it was still large and foreboding. He had not actually thought about joining up as a soldier for Molious, because he knew for certain he would have been of no use to them even if Mikkel had given the okay (which had seemed highly unlikely). However, the idea of leaving them and living outside when there had been a man with his face four years prior working for the Government also seemed like a bad move. Really, if Oliver could not find some way to cope with the new world or get out, then he was basically dead already.

 

"I'm not saying that they know exactly where the base is," The man started, actually giving Oliver all of his attention as his tone dropped to an annoyed level. "But they know about us, kid." Oliver had been called a kid a lot, but it had never been with malice. Sure, Oliver assumed that the man always sounded put-upon and annoyed, but it did very little to calm his already frazzled nerves. "You were the _Civ_ out there on the street, right? So you saw how bad it got. Without _Chief_ and Maria they would have blown us all away. They know about us, kid, and it's only a matter of time until the wrath of god is brought down on us." Oliver understood the man's worry. From his perspective during the run and gun, the Government had known precisely how many people they had had, what type of weapons they would be using, and their major escape routes. It had probably been only a minor miscalculation by America, blind luck, or Mikkel and Maria's 'kill everything' mentality that allowed them to escape. Oliver had never thought of that before Jamison prompted it.

 

"So, what does it mean when someone does something big like what's all over the news?" The man calmed a bit, shifted, and remained silent. Oliver was not sure if he had overstepped the grey boundaries but he really did not understand the connection. Surely the Government, who had seen a lot of things from Molious, would recognize it as not their kind of tactic. Surely Molious did not need to put themselves out there to say that it had not been them. Maybe, Oliver thought, they could just lay low until it all blew over. However, by the activity of the base, he assumed it was not exactly a viable option.

 

"Jesus, they weren’t kidding. You really have no fucking clue, do you? Did Maria explain to you about the news?" Jamison asked a minute later after a heavy pause in which he eyed Oliver a bit softer. Oliver felt awkward that there had been talk about him and hesitated before nodding. She had explained briefly that the Government had a tight grip on broadcasts, but he had not been too sure of what that meant. "This shit is on the news, kid, and that means bad. Whoever did this got people scared, and the Government is going to want to tell people that they got those responsible. This is a shit storm coming at us, and it's coming at us hard. You get it now?" Oliver did. He stared back at the man and he understood. Whatever the Government planned to counter the attack by the nameless vigilantly would probably not be a war of attrition. It would be hard, fast, and end with heads on spikes paraded through the streets. Metaphorically, Oliver hoped.

 

"So that's why this is a huge fucking deal, kid. We have to be ready for a counter attack, and without knowing how much the _Gov_ has on us and our members, we need to move fast." The attack on the ballpark had only happened an hour and a half before, but the way Jamison put it made Oliver think that soldiers were marching toward them as they spoke. Oliver hoped that he was wrong.

 

"I get it. I'm sorry. I just… I didn't really understand. I definitely get it now." The man grunted low and Oliver assumed it was his way of understanding. He had been hardened, like Maria, like Mikkel, and sympathies and tender moments no longer existed for them. In any other state Oliver doubted he would have even looked for a friendly hand on his shoulder and an explanation that included them being all right. He did not get them, though, because no one, not Jamison nor Maria, knew if it would be all right.

 

"Any other questions you feel like getting my blood pressure raised with?" The older man asked, and Oliver just shook his head. He looked past Jamison and toward where people still moved about in the halls. A moment later the man turned to follow Oliver's gaze. There was nothing of real note out there, but Oliver knew he should not detain one of the soldiers of Molious that could keep him safe. He knew Jamison wanted to be out there, and Oliver considered it the best place for the older man.

 

"No, no more questions. I just… I think I want to take a nap." The previous night's sleep had definitely done a number on his body, and Oliver was sure some alone time to think about all he had learned would do him good. He looked at Jamison when the man turned back toward him. He seemed unsure of Oliver's statement. "Look, I know you want to be out there doing something and not in here babysitting me. I get it. If I could do anything to help I'd want to be out there too, so go." Jamison seemed hesitant about that proposition. He watched Oliver as if trying to read him, so the younger man continued.

 

"I won’t move from here. Promise." Jamison seemed like the kind of man that did not believe in promises, but he was also highly restless being stuck with Oliver. Eventually the need to be in the thick of things won him over.

 

"If I hear even a peep of you leaving this room I will assume you are a spy for the _Gov_ and I will find you and I will cut your throat. Do you understand me?" Oliver did and nodded. He would stay put, just as promised, because he had no need to break the small amount of trust that some members of Molious had placed in him thus far. He did not want to be thought of as a Government supporter, even in whispers.

 

When the agreement was settled on, Oliver climbed back on the bunk to lie down and Jamison took his leave, shutting the door behind him. He never heard a lock, but Oliver assumed the older man had engaged it. Still, he had no interest in walking out and being in the way, so he continued to lie there and stare at the metal crossbeams of the bunk above him.

 

A lot had been thrust upon Oliver that day. His family was dead, though from what Oliver had seen it had not exactly been his family. Still they were familiar, something he maybe could have lived for in this world, but no longer a possibility. Mikkel, his best friend, was waging a war and had no memories of Oliver. The planet was dead, his home country ruled by an authoritarian Government, and he was holed up in a secret underground base full of militants just waiting for a raid to come. Maria was there, sure, and would probably do everything in her power to keep him safe, but outside of being shipped somewhere very far from war and oppression Oliver could see no safety. He wondered if that was how the members of Molious felt, even while holding guns and shooting soldiers. He wondered if everyone not with the Government felt hopeless, alone, and afraid.

 

Oliver never imagined he would actually sleep. He had figured that all the thoughts in his head, the worry and the anguish, would keep him up for days. However, somehow, he slept and he dreamt.

 

Oliver did not dream in images, but just in sounds. He dreamt of a steady rhythm and of inhales and exhales. Slowly he dreamt of a voice, one that was familiar and warm. It did not speak to him, but to other familiar and warm voices. It was calming and loving, the whole experience, but it was just a dream; one that was shrouded behind white light or pitch black. It was one that did not follow Oliver back to the waking world.

 

A loud pop jerked Oliver awake. Lingering touches of the dream went with him but dissipated almost immediately. He looked around with alarm for several seconds and all the terror that plagued Oliver before sleep came back.

 

The bunkroom was dark, making sight completely useless. Without the uncomfortable and too small mattress under him, Oliver assumed he would not have known where he was. Carefully he moved, shifting to put on his shoes before standing. He had promised Jamison that he would stay put, but something akin to worry itched under his skin. Previously he had been able to see out of a small window in the door, but something obstructed it and Oliver felt very unsettled by that. In addition to the dark around him, everything seemed off.

 

Maybe they turned out the lights, Oliver thought as he carefully crossed the room, but it had made no real sense. Even if someone felt bad for Oliver sleeping under the florescent bulbs, there was no reason to turn off the hall lights. It also seemed like a poor idea to block the window so that there was no easy way for Oliver to be checked up on by Jamison, Maria, or any number of other Molious soldiers that could have been put in charge of watching over him. When he finally reached his destination, Oliver touched first at the door around where the window was. It took no more than a second for Oliver's fingers to drag over the glass. There had been nothing blocking it from his side. Slowly he moved his hand down the door, searching for several moments for the doorknob. When located, he grabbed and turned it. It did not budge, so Oliver assumed it was locked. Still he jiggled it a few times in futility.

 

Oliver sighed, not loud but enough to cut through the silence of the room. He had been alone before, plenty of times, but never in pitch black. Carefully, as to not trip over anything, Oliver began walking back into the room. He extended his hands out in front of him and waved them around slowly in order to locate obstacles before he walked into them face first. He did not get far from the door, though, before he heard a noise behind him.

 

Turning slowly, fear welling up, Oliver saw past the window. There was some light out there, faint, as if a long distance off, but the noise came from the door. It was a muted jingle that only bled through slightly. Keys, Oliver recognized as one scraped the handle. And the light was from whomever held them but it was purposefully being blocked. A second later the door was open and Maria pushed her way into the room. The door was closed again and Maria locked it shut once more with her keys.

 

"Oliver," She hissed in a whisper as she turned and caught sight of the young man. Instantly after seeing him she turned off her flashlight and moved toward him. "Oliver, we have a big fucking problem." There was no hint of a joke in her voice; there was nothing but controlled panic. Whatever the problem was her explanation of fucking big seemed to fit the bill.

 

"What's wrong?" Oliver asked, voice also a whisper. He assumed that she was doing it on purpose, and to go shouting would have been heavily frowned upon. Still, Oliver felt stupid for asking. A big fucking problem meant only one thing to him, and unless it involved their backup generator running out of gas, Oliver knew what it was.

 

"Fucking _Gov_ coming in," She told him more professional than Oliver thought anyone had a right to be at that moment. He felt the fear claw in, the realization that he would probably die right there in that dark base. He locked up, feelings coming over him all at once. Suddenly his vision seemed to tunnel, almost as if the darkness around him encroached further. His chest felt heavy, like he had dropped a barbell and could not lift it off. His throat tightened, like Maria herself had grabbed him and was trying to strangle him. It seemed like sweat would poke from the pores on his forehead, but Maria was ready for it. "Oliver. Oliver, listen to me. They're in here and we know that. We have no power, but we're trained. Eventually we'll find out where they got in, and from there we will know where to go out. You're not the only civilian we have, Oliver, so we're going to get you all out, do you hear me?" Oliver was honestly glad that Maria had come to get him. He did not think that anyone else, not Jamison and definitely not Mikkel, would have talked him down from the near panic attack he had. She knew how to handle him, and though Oliver's rational mind told him that escape was still slim, he wanted to trust her.

 

"What do I need to do?" Oliver asked quietly several seconds later. He had swallowed it down, the fear, the anxiety, and the worry about who he was in this strange world. He knew that at that moment he had to just be Oliver, and to hell with all the thoughts weighing him down. He just had to be, and survive. Maria seemed to accept the change in tone as Oliver's complete obedience, so she shifted the keys in her hand again.

 

"First thing is we get out of this room. We're going to head back to the command center because it's in the middle of the complex. From there, when we find out where the _Gov_ is coming in from, we'll get you and the others to the exit farthest from them." Oliver understood the plan and nodded, even though she could not see him. He hoped that her plan would go that smoothly, but a realistic part of him told him that no plans ever go that smooth. He told it to shut up, and with good timing too because they had begun to move.

 

Maria never offered Oliver a gun and he thought it had been for the best. Though he had been telling himself to calm down, and actually had significantly, he still could not promise Maria's or his own safety if he had a weapon in hand. Instead he followed as quietly as he could. She unlocked the door, pocketed the keys, and slipped out. Oliver followed and they paused just long enough for Maria to silently close the door again.

 

Oliver could hear his own heartbeat in his ears, and his footsteps sounded especially loud in the otherwise silent hall. With Molious' staffing, Oliver assumed that there were people hiding all around them, just incase the Government soldiers had broken in along that hallway, but Oliver never saw nor heard them. All he could see in the black was the oblong circle of light where Maria's flashlight beam hit the floor. Occasionally it would catch the corners of things lying on the ground-- crates, tables, and the like. Sometimes Oliver swore things moved, but he had become aware that it had probably just been a trick of his eyes after awhile. No nervous adjusting of neither firearms nor erratic breathing gave any hint that anyone other than Maria and he were in the halls.

 

It had felt like forever before they arrived at the command center. Maria knocked softly, but it echoed. They waited, and it took several tense seconds before the door opened. Once they were both inside, Maria's flashlight clicked off.

 

"That everyone?" Maria asked suddenly. The room was basked in a dim light, which was welcoming to Oliver. He could actually see the other occupants of the room, even if they were in semi-shadow and looked as nervous as Oliver felt. There were a few soldiers, probably under Maria's rank, that held M-16's close to their chests. There were also other military-esque people that seemed to have cool and calm demeanors much like Maria's. Oliver assumed that they were other ranked officers that lead squadrons. Finally were the civilians that Maria had spoken of. They kept their eyes down and some shook with fear, just as Oliver had before he talked himself into action. Among them were a couple younger women, probably older than Oliver, and several men in a wide variety of ages including the doctor that had treated Oliver's wounds that morning. He seemed to be the calmest of the bunch, but still did not meet Oliver's eyes.

 

"Yeah, you were the last," One of the officers told Maria in a hushed tone. Oliver had not received anything from the way the man spoke, but his tone seemed to have set Maria on edge. Their verbal battle was short and quiet, but held weight.

 

"Wouldn't be the last if Jamison had done what I said," Maria argued, moving closer to the man. He was taller than her, bigger than her, but Oliver did not think that either would work to his advantage if engaged in a fistfight with Maria. It was not just his affinity toward the woman that made Oliver think that way, though.

 

"You put a soldier in a position of responsibility over what could very well be a war prisoner and he wasn't even locked up. No, Maria, I do think that's your fault." Maria might have been able to win in combat, but she obviously had lost that argument. Still, it was not the blaming that got Oliver's attention, but that the other man had basically called him a prisoner. Oliver thought he had made strides separating himself from the Oliver in Mikkel's file, but it apparently had only been with Maria. The others, probably most of them, still saw him just as a bargaining chip now that the Government was on their doorstep.

 

Maria began to speak, her voice almost a growl, but before a word even got out they stopped. Everyone stopped except the civilians that continued to shift nervously. The silence was thick again, and though Oliver could finally place sounds from the others, it felt more oppressive than the silence of the hallways. When it finally broke, the room turned into a flurry of activity. It caught Oliver off guard and though Maria spoke to him, he heard nothing. When he asked her to repeat, the man that had been fighting with Maria cut in.

 

"He's not going anywhere with you," He told her strictly. "He's going to get these fuckers out of our base." Oliver understood that meant he would be Molious' hostage, and before he could protest, Maria took control again.

 

"Like fuck he is, Beckius! This is not your call!" Maria did not shout, but she no longer whispered. "The base is gone. They know where it is. We're all going to die here, or we'll get the _Civs_ out and systematically retreat." Once again her voice dropped, and she got so close to the man that it would have been impossible to hear if the rest of the room had not been so quiet. "Unless I hear that this… this kid is to be our scapegoat from the Founders, then he's leaving with us." Oliver finally understood that Maria and the man, Beckius, were both on the same level. Neither had control over the other, and with the Founders apparently not in the picture, Oliver could see the fatal mistake in the plan. No one was leading the whole group. Apparently the snake had no head, or, in this case, it appeared to have too many heads.

 

"Fine. You do what you have to, Maria, but that target is not coming with this group." It was obvious that time was running short for their escape. The heighten tension in the room meant that somewhere the Government soldiers had entered the base, and that they had to go if they were going at all. Maria waved her hand dismissively.

 

"Fine. But Lindeen is coming with me." The soldier Maria had named turned to finally address the argument between his superior officers. Oliver watched him and thought he did not look very happy about the decision Maria had made. It was not just the superior officers that thought Oliver had ratted out their location.

 

"No. You want to die, Maria, then that's your choice, but you do not get to kill any of our soldiers as well. Lindeen is with us." Beckius turned from her and addressed the rest of the group. He explained who would be going with who, and what routes they would take. A paper map of the complex lay on the table and he traced paths quickly but with authority. Neither Oliver nor Maria was included in the conversation, but Maria listened nonetheless. She grimaced and snarled, but did not cut in. Instead she let Beckius decide his plan for half a minute before she caught Oliver's elbow and pulled him away.

 

"They came in from the western tunnel, Oliver," Maria explained slowly. Oliver figured that meant they would head to the eastern side of the base. That they would be as far from the Government soldiers as they could. However, from what Oliver heard, that meant that they would travel the same direction as the other group. From Beckius' tone, Oliver did not like that idea one bit. Maria watched him for a second, seeing realization on Oliver's face.

 

"No, we won’t go east. What we're going to do is go south. We have a lot of storage down in that section. Maybe we can hide out until they clear through the south and then head toward the southwest. It's a small tunnel and it'll be close to where they entered, but we might be able to sneak out right under their noses." Oliver thought about the vague mental map he had of the compound. It was not complete, certainly, but he remembered the western section. That had been the tunnel where Oliver and Maria had gone out that morning. It had been the tunnels that lead to the store.

 

"It was the store owner, wasn't it?" Oliver asked, and Maria did not answer right away. For all the explaining Maria had done about their escape plan, Oliver had managed to get stuck on figuring out who the rat was. He had fixated on that one point, on the injustice done to them by someone that should have been an ally, and did not seem to have listened to any part beyond that. It was impressive, but not needed at that moment.

 

"He will get his dues, Oliver. What's more important is getting moving. I won’t be using my light, so I want you to understand what's going to happen. We're going to head south, and when I tell you to stop, we stop. We hide. When we're going, you go. No questions, no hesitations. This time we won’t have _Chief_ here to bail us out, but it's going to be just like in the streets. I just need you to trust me, Oliver. Can we do this?" Swallowing thickly, Oliver nodded. Beckius' group had begun heading to the door Oliver and Maria had entered through. The officer eyed them with contempt and just a bit of pity before leading the way out. Maria paused and listened. There were no immediate gunshots, no hint that the Government soldiers had made it far enough into the base to have had the room surrounded. The first good sign, Oliver thought.

 

"We won’t be caught, right?" He asked Maria once more, a bit shakily. She looked at Oliver, clapped a hand on his shoulder, and shook her head.

 

"We're going to make it out, Oliver. Trust me."

 

Oliver did trust Maria, so he followed her. She went to a door on the southwest corner of the room and opened it as deftly as she had the door on the bunkroom. She peaked out and scanned the darkness. When no bullets came her way, they moved.

 

The door shut behind Oliver with a solid click, but he realized far too late to slowly shut it. Instead he tried to stay with Maria, though he could see nothing of her once submerged in the black again. Never had Oliver relied so much on his hearing as he stumbled after Maria's footsteps. Occasionally she would kick something, or Oliver would trip over something, but they continued to move, never speaking. It felt infinitely long before Maria's voice cut through the silence in a hissed "Stop." Oliver did, and though the echo of her voice made him unsure of how far ahead she was, he waited. Neither of them moved, as far as Oliver could tell, so he just stood in the blackness like a statue.

 

"Oliver," Finally came her whispered voice again. He hesitated, wondering if he should speak or remain silent. She did not call to him again, though, so he ventured a very quiet "Yeah?"

 

"Alright, I'm just ahead of you. Come slowly." Oliver did, as slowly and as quietly as he could. Still, any movement he made, the rustling of his clothes, the soft impact of his sneakers, seemed like shouts in the silence. He grimaced with each step until a hand on his chest stopped him. Oliver jumped a little, but Maria's voice a fraction of a second later let him know that she was the one touching him.

 

"Close enough," The woman whispered before removing her hand and leaning down. He could not see what she was doing for several seconds before a soft click brought forth light. Maria's hand glowed red from where it pressed over the lens. Slowly she moved her hand to let out just a sliver of light, passing it along the ground. What she had found was a body.

 

Fatally shot more than once, in the middle of the hall lay the recognizable form of Jamison. Oliver did not gasp, did not shout, but he did begin to lock up once again. He had just spoken to the old man a few hours prior, and now he lay dead on a dirty cement floor. If the bullets in his body had not killed him, then the slit throat had. His blood had formed a lake, and Oliver saw why Maria had stopped. She had stepped in the blood and tapped his body with her toe. The boot print was still visible in the red liquid, and though she had not moved more than a step back, Oliver could tell she would leave bloodily prints if they were to continue. However, none of this seemed to be Maria's first priority. She shifted the flashlight against her pants to reach down and close the old man's dead eyes. Oliver said a small prayer, but Maria did not.

 

"Alright, Oliver," Maria began to whisper, but no more came out as movement from some ways down caught both of their attention. Maria's flashlight clicked off immediately and her hand was on Oliver again. "I can't put my foot down. You have to help me. There's a door a few meters behind us. Wall to your left." Like hell, Oliver thought, that they would outrun soldiers with Maria hopping on one foot. Instead he reached down to scoop her up, carrying her bridal style as he retreated back.

 

Oliver had no doubt that he was not quiet with Maria in his arms. It was not that she was heavy, but that he had been forced into a posture that did not allow for slow and cautious movements. Behind him, somewhere, were Government soldiers. They probably would have loved to shoot them both while they ran, but Oliver knew if he could get to the door, then maybe, just maybe, they could hide.

 

"Here," Maria whispered as she caught the doorframe with her fingers. Oliver turned, Maria opened the door, and they pushed in. However, as Oliver turned to fit both himself and Maria through the door, he caught sight of the soldiers.

 

They were not exactly visible; their bodies indistinguishable from the black, but the same green glow he had seen come from their goggles the night prior on the street told him all he needed to know. They had probably been seen. Still, Oliver had no intention of standing there and surrendering. He charged through the door and slammed it closed behind him.

 

The walls of the room were thick so there was no telling if they were being pursued. The blackness continued and Oliver had no idea which way to turn. Without shielding the flashlight this time, Maria turned it on. The room, a storage room by the looks of it, was full of crates, tarps, and shelves. She scanned for a door, but there was no back way out. Swearing silently, both people looked for a place to hide. Maria pushed herself from Oliver's hold, landing easily on her feet as she shown the flashlight toward some large crates. Then she turned back to Oliver.

 

"Hide." She told him, but Oliver did not move. He did not want to leave her out there. He wanted her to take off her damn boots, he wanted her to hide with him and make a break for it while the soldiers were searching the room. However the doorknob was turning and Oliver knew it was already too late. "Southwest. Find _Chief_." She told him. Oliver ran and got behind the boxes. They could save her, he knew. She was an officer and they would want to capture her. He would find Mikkel and, together, they could save Maria.

 

Just as Oliver ducked behind the crates, the door swung open. Maria shone her flashlight directly at the men and Oliver could finally see the soldiers from where he peaked between some boxes. They dressed head to toe in body armor and held semi-automatic rifles up. They flinched only slightly from the bright light in their night vision goggles, but they were professional.

 

" _Hey assholes,_ " Maria began. "Speak Swedish?" She finished, and before the final syllable completely left her mouth, a loud gunshot tore through the room. The flashlight dropped first, and without a staggering step Maria followed it. Oliver screamed, though he remembered telling himself specifically not to. He had gotten to his feet and charged the men. He stopped and realized what he had done only when the barrels of the two soldiers' guns turned on him. They did not shoot, and Oliver did not move. He stood as still as a deer in headlights, facing the eerie glow of the green night vision goggles.

 

" _Sir_?" One soldier asked, though not to Oliver. A second later one approached and slammed the butt of his rifle against Oliver's head with a speed and accuracy that left Oliver stonewalled. His world went blacker than the halls ever could have been.

 

Mikkel woke with a start; his gun raised and sweat pouring down his face. The sun still hovered somewhere below the horizon, but had begun turning the smog orange. He looked around the small room with both the barrel of his pistol and his eyes simultaneously. Around him lay used Opal syringes and the bottle of pills he had bought the evening prior. He refused to open it and see if he had taken any and, instead, stood and moved toward the bathroom.   Everything in the room was rusted and covered in dust, but it had just become such a normal thing for Mikkel that he did not even pause as he turned on the tap. He let it run for only a millisecond before he splashed a handful onto his face and scrubbed. At least, Mikkel figured, he could do away with the sweat. At best the cold and cloudy water could wash away the memory of the terribly drug-induced dream.

 

Mikkel never slept unless he told himself to. He never slept unless guarded and safe. He definitely never slept in an unsecured hostel right after making the biggest anti-Government demonstration of the year. Nothing other than a bad overdose or strange concoction would have forced him to sleep and let the dreams come.

 

Mikkel almost never dreamt, but he almost never slept either. There were too many things to do, too many deaths to plot, and so sleep had long since been abandoned. However, even when he did sleep, he forced the dreams not to come. He worked hard to never sleep deep, to never hit REM and let his subconscious play movies of his past atrocities to him. Somebody once, probably Maria, had told him that running from the problem would just make it worse when, eventually, Mikkel would have to face it. Obviously she had been right, but Mikkel had always assumed he would be dead before he would have had to face his demons. He apparently had only needed to be too high.

 

Moving back to the main room, Mikkel got a bottle of water from his gun case and eyed what little liquid remained in it. He needed to get back to Molious, and it would not be an easy hike, but sleep had left him dry and with a bad taste in the back of his throat. Compromising, Mikkel took only a sip and then lit a cigarette. He picked up the used Opal syringes as he smoked. Sure, no one else would use the room, but in the off chance that American soldiers searched the hostel and connected the tiny bits of blood on the needles to him, Mikkel wanted to keep Margie safe. With the cigarette burning between his lips, Mikkel sanitized each needle with fire and wiped each tube down. He could have done more, Mikkel knew, but though not wanting to put a civilian in danger ranked high on his list, getting back to Molious ranked higher.

 

Mikkel would need to give a report to the Founders, as was their agreement. He figured they would be his first stop, followed by the base where he would start in on the Ekman-Larsson _not_ soldier again. Though the dream had not faded at all, Mikkel kept himself professional about it. Oliver was most likely a spy, and if he was allowed to make contact with the Government, then a fate like what Mikkel had dreamed would not be too far behind. He had to protect Molious at all costs.

 

With the cigarette burned down and the syringes cleaned, Mikkel packed and left. He did not speak to Margie, did not look for another drug dealer. He moved across town in shadows. He found the building, the one with the coded lock that lead down to tunnels; the same tunnels that went to where the Founders hid in secret and seclusion. They did not welcome unscheduled contact, but Mikkel found himself particularly unsympathetic to protocol that day. He wanted water, he wanted to brief them, and he wanted to go. The dream still hung with him, and though convinced of its source as just a drug dream, Mikkel still wanted to verify. The first sign he got did not promise he would get what he wanted.

 

The keypad to the tunnel had been destroyed and the door in the cellar of the building stood ajar. Mikkel did not enter immediately, but actually eyed the unusual sight with suspicion. He did not want to believe. He did not want to believe anything without more proof. Cautiously, Mikkel entered.

 

Periodically through the tunnel, Mikkel found more proof. He found bodies of the specially trained soldiers that stood guard for the Founders. There were not many that were allowed to know the Founders, and even fewer that were allowed to work with them, but those that were were the best Molious had. They were the best Molious could even imagine. Mikkel knew what their dead bodies meant before he even got to the main chamber.

 

The main chamber was where the Founders held court. There, if there ever were a breach, would be where the last stand was. Mikkel found the stand that had most certainly had lived up to its name. He stepped over the bodies, less than thirty of them, as he moved through the room. No sounds of life came to his ears as he checked the corpses. It took a few minutes, but when he found one Founder, Mikkel found the rest. The first shots that hit them, Mikkel could tell, had not been fatal. They had then been tortured, ears cut off, fingers, sometimes even limbs. A few of the bodies even seemed to have been bled. They had not given up information easily, if at all, Mikkel realized as he looked over the lifeless corpses. They had held on for a long time, maybe even long enough that the soldiers had not yet reached Molious’ base, but eventually the Founders were no longer found useful. Eventually they were executed with a few rounds to their heads. Mikkel knew they would not have given up secrets because they knew that they would have been killed regardless. They never would have cracked, so Mikkel still held hope that Molious' base would have been safe.

 

Mikkel moved around the rooms, looking in and out for things to take. He had rounds still for all of his guns, but more would not have been bad. He also needed water and food. Nothing. Nothing at all. Except for the bodies of Molious soldiers, there was nothing in the bunker. The American soldiers had taken everything, even their fallen if there had been any. Mikkel's jaw tightened. He needed to get to Molious.

 

Considering his options, Mikkel planned a route to the headquarters. It would take him in the eastern tunnels, which were the closest to the Founders' bunker. He would move cautiously and at any sign of the enemy soldiers he would take the kill first and wonder why later approach. It had seemed the day prior that he would begin making headway on avenging his fallen comrades, but with the body count he had already witnessed in the early hours of that day, Mikkel knew he had taken hundreds of steps back.

 

As he promised himself he would, Mikkel moved carefully. He checked each step before he took it, planned ahead in case of danger, but he had come upon no bodies, no blood, and no American soldiers. It was either they had gotten deep into the base, or they had not made it in at all. Mikkel hoped for the latter, but if the Founders had been compromised, then that left him with little hope for the Molious center. Still he moved and found nothing, until he reached the final door into the base.

 

A pile of bodies lay just inside, and Mikkel recognized them instantly. Among them were the ranked soldier Beckius and the physician that had been run out of his practice. Mikkel did not remember the doctor's name, and had never found it significant. Even then, when looking at the tangled pile of bullet-riddled bodies, Mikkel did not think it was significant. Whatever his name was was dead, and just another statistic. No nice words in memory came to Mikkel's mind.

 

The lights of the base shone brightly so Mikkel hung to walls and corners, but after sweeping a quadrant, Mikkel had confirmed his fear. His dream had been true. Somehow, through the drugs, he had seen Molious' end, and had not been there to at least put up a fight. He had gone AWOL yet again, and this time, like the last, he was given no home to return to.

 

Mikkel moved much quicker when not scouting every corner. He had nothing else to live for, and his old plan came back to mind. He needed explosives, and he needed guns. He needed to take the battle to the Government without any more shadow tactics. What he got out of his search, though, was a more severe rage. Like with the Founders' bunker, Molious had been ransacked. Bodies of those that had been killed in rooms were dragged to the halls. Their weapons and ammunition were taken, and they were marked after being searched. Unlike in the Founders' base, Molious had more soldiers and each had to have been designated as checked. Bright orange florescent spray paint X's on their chests were the signal, and each body had them.

 

The final straw for Mikkel was when he arrived in their water purification room. The piping, the tanks, and even the pumps had been smashed and left in pieces on the floor. The rage that clawed and bit under his skin and calm control finally lashed out. He grabbed a piece, any piece and he howled as he threw it. He continued screaming, dry throat getting rougher before his voice finally gave out. Then Mikkel panted. His head swam with revenge, but his body ached for sustenance. Sleep was something that Mikkel could do without, some trace from whatever happened to him when with the Government. Food and water, however, were still necessities.

 

Slowly Mikkel collapsed to the floor and sat with his back against the wall. It was fatigue that was more mental than physical. Before, after going AWOL from the Government, Mikkel had turned to Molious for his supplies. He had used them to get the goods to kill himself and as many soldiers as he could. Where would he turn with the supplies gone, Mikkel wondered? He had no direction any more, and the bullets he possessed would never amount to enough dead soldiers. Mikkel breathed and relaxed. He recognized what he was doing was grieving, and though a frightening thought, he latched onto it. He had grieved before, for Sidney when he had visited the apartment. He had decided then, too, to kill himself in one grand suicide mission. Now, while grieving Molious, Mikkel knew he had to think smarter.

 

Everything would have been easier if he had let that Oliver just die on the street.

 

Oliver, Mikkel thought, was the rat that led the Government to Molious. On his feet again, Mikkel stalked off. Maria had been in the southern section, Mikkel remembered from his dream. Oliver had been with her. Southwest, he had been told. He would be able to track the rat out that way. He would only need one bullet for him.

 

Mikkel traced the path he remembered from the dream. He moved from the control center down hallways that had been black to Maria and Oliver, but were mentally mapped by Mikkel, He knew how many meters each were, where each hall connected, where each door was set in from the wall. He had years to memorize the layout, and something in him had done so, making retracing Maria's steps easy. It took no more than a few minutes to come upon her corpse.

 

Maria’s body shone brightly under the harsh overhead lights. A blood streak extended from under the door of a supply room and ended in the pool that spread around her like a red halo. Mikkel felt sadness, and though foreign by that point, he could still identify it. He had not felt sad in a long time, and albeit hardly a time for regret, he felt that as well. He knew, deep down, that he might as well have been the one to pull the trigger. He had joined Molious as a ticking time bomb. He had been hunted, knew he probably was still being hunted, and yet nested under their wings. He had thought he had paid back their kindness with training, but with the body count, with dead Molious soldiers all around him, Mikkel knew he had not. He had carried out an attention campaign and the Government had hunted Molious instead of him. Oliver's intelligence had lead them inside while Mikkel hid and shot up away from the base. Oliver moved while Mikkel hid even from himself.

 

Carefully, Mikkel knelt next to Maria's body. He had not loved her, not like Sidney. He had not even been sure he was still capable of love after everything, but her death hit him hard at that moment. He knew, once he was sure that the dream was more, that she was dead. However, kneeling over her body put it into high definition. The only hope Molious had had, the only glimmer in the dark, had been slaughtered just like the rest. She was no immortal angel like some had believed.

 

In his grief, Mikkel could have sworn he imagined the soft voice. It was a whisper of his name in the empty tunnels of the empty base.

 

"Guess…. Guess I was wrong about you, _Chief_ ," Came the voice, and Mikkel looked at the woman. A wry smile was on Maria's face, her eyes, not her head, turned to regard him in blurry recognition. It seemed like a miracle, and though Mikkel did not believe in them, he had no time to process.

 

"Just hold on," Mikkel hurriedly said, moving to get up, but was stopped by her dry laugh. Maria lacked the strength to keep him rooted there physically, but she sure knew how to keep him still without it. She was alive, and it made no sense.

 

"I'm going to go try to find a med kit," He continued, but it died off as she shook her head. Slowly her hand moved from her abdomen, falling lethargically and heavily to the floor. She revealed the wound that brought her near death and it was a grotesque picture. Some of the soldiers that had stormed Molious had not used normal rounds, but armor-piercing rounds. They had not just shot Maria, but blown her open. He had not seen similar wounds on the other soldiers, but hers was unmistakable.

 

"Really no point, _Chief_ , is there?" She told him dryly, and he knew it to be the truth. She would more than likely bleed out before he even returned. And if the soldiers had managed to overlook a single medical kit she would still probably die from toxic shock. There was enough blood and bile in her abdominal cavity that nothing short of being on a surgeon’s table right at that moment would have saved her life. Mikkel was very far from being what she needed and there was a long pause where they both seemed to come to terms with her imminent demise.

 

"Guess we knew we'd die like this. I mean, not really a line of work where we'll die from a common household accident in our nineties, is it?" She remained joking in the face of death and Mikkel admired her for that. He admired her for a lot of things in those moments. However, Mikkel completely understood and told her so. They all knew the risk, but they had thought they would die outside where the fighting was. They never imagined there would have been a breach in the base of all places. Mikkel could still only think of one person that would have leaked their location to the Government, and though he knew little of what had happened during his day away from Molious, he assumed Oliver had been in the center of it. As if reading his mind, Maria commented on the lost boy.

 

"They took Oliver. Didn't kill him."

 

"Probably bringing him back to put a fucking medal on his chest for finally swatting us down." Mikkel hissed venomously. Maria's eyes had slipped closed, but they opened once more to send a narrow look at Mikkel. She had not exactly expected his idea of the young man to have changed during his day away, doing whatever it was he did, but to place the blame once more on him seemed like a disjointed conclusion to an already disjointed argument.

 

"He's less of a monster than any of us were, _Chief_." Maria paused, swallowing heavily as blood burbled to her lips. She would die soon, and Mikkel would sit there and watch. It was the least he could do. After all, he had brought wrath down upon the group. "In my quarters there's a little dresser. Top drawer. Locked. Break it for all I fucking care. Get my journal and read it." Mikkel was unsure what he would find in it, the book Maria wanted him to read, but he assumed it had to do with Oliver, what with her final conversation being about him. Slowly he nodded and, though pained, Maria smiled. She closed her eyes once more, and they both remained silent as she died. Mikkel could think of no prayer to say over her body, no final words to say about the woman that had once saved his life, but he still watched her lifeless corpse for minutes. They would all die like that, Mikkel thought once more, but he had at least one more day to avenge them. He had once more day to make America pay. Still, given the self-ascribed mission in front of him, Mikkel could not force himself to move for several long minutes.

Eventually he stood, slow and labored, almost as if all the will to move had been sapped from him and only the strings of fate were pulling him onward. He moved in the same way as he stalked down the halls, past the bodies of his fallen comrades, and to the sleeping quarters. Once inside Maria’s room, Mikkel walked to the table she had described to him. Using the butt of his gun, he broke the lock and pulled the drawer open. Inside was the journal, worn red cover that bordered on almost a light brown from years of exposure to different elements. He took it and began to leaf through it before he thought better. It had been Maria’s last wish that he read it, and something inside told him that doing so without her presence would not be what she wanted. Balling his fist around the journal, Mikkel began back to her body, no longer pulled by fate but by his own determination.


	7. Capital G

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 7 Warnings: Xenophobia, Language, Racist and Religious Slurs, Violence, Torture (Psychological and Physical), Mentions of: Drug Use, Starvation**  
>  Merry Christmas!
> 
>  
> 
> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possessions)  
> Song for Chapter 7 Capital G: [El President - Drugstore](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqmEXdkU5hg)

Oliver had no idea how long he had been unconscious because when he woke he was inside yet another building. Sure, he supposed he could have still been in the Molious base, but the room felt different, far more sinister than the few places he had seen in his short stay in this reality. Most places felt sad and depressed, or energized in the case of the base, but the room he sat in seemed far more evil than any location had a right to be. It took several more minutes for Oliver to place why his head hurt and why his vision still swam. When he remembered what had transpired just before his abrupt fade to black, Oliver could locate other bumps and bruises. The one on his head was the most prominent of course, signaling a heavy headache, but further than that Oliver felt like he had been dragged over cracked cement and hit against walls a few times. He could not pick any one location that hurt and just generalized it seconds later as simply 'all over'. It was akin to, Oliver assumed, being stomped on for hours.

 

The fuzziness of unconsciousness followed Oliver as he tried to look around through squinted eyes at where he was. The walls were painted a grey-blue, but appeared to be made of cement blocks. The floor was used linoleum that was full of scuffmarks and dirty boot prints. Still it was in good repair compared to most things Oliver had seen in the once vibrant Stockholm. He was not entirely sure when he had started to believe Maria, but in those moments as he fought to see, he had begun to take her side.

 

Thoughts of Maria came upon Oliver. She had been shot, but he had seen her shot before. She had pulled through with almost no problem, but it had been a shoulder wound that time. A gut shot, like the one she had taken, was different and though Oliver hoped that someone had gotten to her after he had been laid out, he still could not convince himself to get his hopes up.

 

Moving proved to be impossible as Oliver attempted to reach up and rub at his tired eyes. He thought he may have been able to force them into focus that way, but when he tried to lift his hand, it remained stationary against the arm of the chair he was seated in. He tried again, and when once more he found himself unable to move, he forced himself to blink clarity back to his mind. Everything still hurt, but with cleared eyes, he could assess his situation.

 

As Oliver looked, he saw that he was strapped to a metal chair. Really, it seemed more like a dental chair than anything normally found around a home, but he did not have much time to determine a whole lot more than that. A voice broke through the silence of the room and startled Oliver into looking up. Across the room to Oliver's left stood a man in a very professional suit and tie. His shoes were shined and not dust covered, and flanking him on either side were soldiers with guns. They did not wear the gas masks with glowing eyes as the ones that stormed Molious had, but were simply dressed in fatigues and one wore a hat. The other had a buzzed hair cut, and Oliver did not need to be told in order to know that they were the military for the Government.

 

" _So, finally decided to join us in the waking world, Oliver_?" Oliver was not thrilled that the man knew his name, and his expression betrayed him because seconds later the man laughed and pushed from his perch against the wall. He had been holding a clipboard but dropped it on a small metal cart as he approached. " _Surprised? Oh please, we know a hell of a lot, Oliver. But you… you're still a bit of an enigma_." At first the man did not continue, rolling his shoulders as if limbering up for a fight. Oliver knew that if the man decided to beat him up there would be nothing he could do to defend against it, and hoped that he would not take a swing.

 

" _Who are you_?" Oliver asked, not fully understanding what the man was saying nor the words below it, but he spoke in English and Oliver was not one to try and force Swedish. He had learned from Molious that if English was spoken, you speak it back. Hopefully, Oliver thought, he could fudge understanding.

 

" _Ah_!" The man declared, snapping his fingers and pointing at the ceiling. Oliver did not understand the gesture at all and just continued to watch him. The man did not look old, but he definitely was in his fifties. He was clean-shaven and held a good posture, but there was something off about him that at first Oliver could not place.

 

" _Yes, my name is Sinclair. Malcolm Sinclair, that is. You can call me Mister Sinclair. That's what everyone calls me_." The man had a grand air about him, Oliver could not deny that, but the need to call him Mister Sinclair seemed ridiculous. Oliver did not work for the man, did not even know him, but yet he thrust whatever status he had on Oliver right away. However, still fearing another beating, Oliver played along. If he managed to stay alive, then maybe someone from Molious could find him and save him. He wondered if anyone had gotten a hold of Mikkel after the raid.

 

" _So now, I assume, you're wondering just why you're here. Just why you weren't killed like all of your little friends, right_?" The man's tone was full of arrogance, and Oliver felt a bit of his own temper bubble up for just a fraction of a second, but his self-preservation trumped it easily. Still he did not answer the man, only shifted his gaze to the soldiers that stood against the wall. He was brought back to looking at the overly theatrical man by more finger snaps, right in his face that time.

 

" _Oliver. Oliver, I asked you a question. Pretty rude not to answer, is it not_?" Again Oliver bit back his temper, teeth on his tongue for a painful second.

 

" _No, Mister Sinclair. Actually, I was wondering where I am._ " He spoke flatly, and tried to keep the annoyance from seeping into his voice, though not well. Malcolm Sinclair frowned, though he did not look awkward at all. He looked almost as if he assumed Oliver would not work with him, though disappointed that he had been right.

 

" _Oliver… Oliver, look. I'm a man that likes games_." He paused for a moment, turning to look at his soldiers before gesturing with his head toward them. " _Not card games or board games, but real games with real stakes. I like playing games with peoples' lives, Oliver, so unless you want me to start playing with your fragile little existence, I think you should probably humor me here_." He turned back to Oliver, slamming his hands down on Oliver's wrists and using his weight to push them against the metal chair. Oliver bit back the sudden pain under a snarl that was never vocalized. He held it in as best as he could as he looked up at the man, teeth gritted.

 

" _So, we didn't slaughter you like the rest of the flock because, when one of our soldiers did a facial scan on you, you came up as deceased. Now, pretty strange, isn't it that someone who we're certain was buried is alive and kicking around with those so called freedom fighters_?" Oliver abstained from answering and, though not rhetorical, Sinclair continued on as if it was. " _So I sent the order out not to kill you, but to bring you back here. Because, really, we don't like mysteries_." Oliver did not like mysteries all that much either. For a moment, one brief shred of a moment, Oliver thought that maybe the Government could give him the answers that Molious could not. They knew so much more, and he could let them poke and prod him for a little while in exchange for figuring out exactly who he was. However, that attempt at changing to the winning side died as soon as he actually looked at Malcolm Sinclair again. He looked at his smug face, at his high-class suit and cufflinks and Oliver knew he could never side with them, especially when people were starving and being poisoned in his homeland.

 

" _What are you going to do to me then?_ " Oliver asked, a bit weakly adding " _Mister Sinclair_ " to the end when the other man narrowed his gaze and clicked his tongue disapprovingly at him. When happy with Oliver's use of his name, Sinclair, let up on Oliver's wrists and took a few steps back, turning away from him as if in thought. Honestly he had thought about what to do with Oliver before, but had never quite made up his mind. Now, with the moment of decision approaching, Malcolm Sinclair knew he would need to make a choice.

 

" _Well, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, I'm thinking we're going to play with your life just a little bit to see if you really aren't the soldier I know you're not._ " His need to explore the oddity of Oliver won out over his need to neutralize what could only be a threat. The way Malcolm spoke, however, gave Oliver pause. There were a ton of negatives in Sinclair's statement and though Oliver knew English, it was still basic enough to require a moment for him to figure out exactly what Sinclair meant. Sure, he got the part where, right then, Malcolm was not going to kill him, but for a good thirty seconds Oliver did not know if the man thought he was a soldier or not. In that time the man took his hand and stroked Oliver’s palm. Oliver wanted to pull back, recoil from the touch, but the bindings kept him still.

 

" _That's how I know, Oliver._ " Sinclair said in a silky tone that held something underneath that seemed dangerous and venomous. " _We chip everyone; Left palm about a centimeter below the skin. Nowadays we implant them in babies when they’re born. It just makes things easier, but back when we just took over this shitty little country, we had to drag everyone in and chip them. You're, what, twenty-three now? Would have been just a baby when this war started, but a bright age of fourteen when we rolled in to town._ " Sinclair paused to grab the clipboard he had discarded at the start of their talk. He opened it and flipped just a few pages before he found what he was looking for.

 

" _Ah yes, so you were chipped right away and wanted to join our ranks. You enthusiastically signed up at sixteen. Sure, no secret projects or anything because two years into your service you were killed by…_ " Malcolm trailed off for just a moment, grinning to himself before he let the secret out into the open. " _A Molious attack on the western training grounds outside of Stockholm. Oh, now isn't that interesting?_ " Oliver stared at Sinclair with surprise and confusion. Maria had told him he had died as a Government soldier and that had sounded pretty bad. What she had not told him, what she had kept secret, was that it had been her own organization that had ended his life. He had been a kid, fresh faced and dumb. He did not deserve to die like that.

 

" _Well, isn't that an interesting look!_ " Malcolm said with jubilation in his tone. He had gotten the reaction he had apparently wanted out of Oliver, and though Oliver rationalized that, he still could not force himself to react differently. He had put his life in the hands of those that had killed him before just because he had made one stupid ill-informed decision in some other life.

 

" _I didn't… they never…_ " Oliver began, but Sinclair was a man that liked to hear himself talk and took over for the younger man.

 

" _Never told you? Oh, big surprise there. You see, they tried to hide their dirty work, make themselves look like the white knight riding in to slay the dragon of Government, but really, at the heart and soul of that group there, they're just a bunch of anarchists. They live for the fight and don't actually care who gets between them and their goals. Sure, years ago maybe they were doing the right thing by some moral code, but once Boedker joined up, they turned into something else._ " A part of Oliver knew what Sinclair was doing. He was attempting to alienate Oliver from Molious, from Mikkel, but even though Oliver knew, he could not stop himself from being pulled along.

 

" _I… I didn't know,_ " Oliver admitted slowly, getting what appeared to be a sympathetic look from Sinclair. However, Oliver knew that it was just for show. The man seemed like a sociopath and no matter how many masks he put on, Oliver reminded himself that he probably never felt any of it.

 

" _Getting the chips out isn't easy, and often leaves a pretty obvious scar that we can find no problem when we look for it. We looked for it and couldn't find it so, that really just leaves the idea that you've never been chipped._ " Oliver had heard about the chips before, from Maria. She had told him that they had not found one either and to her that meant that Oliver was not from their world. He doubted that Sinclair would take that route at all. " _So, at first we thought maybe you were Oliver's twin, but everything is an exact match from your finger prints to your DNA. Now, Oliver, we're curious as to how you're not dead._ " The man trailed off and Oliver realized he had actually asked a question. Of course it was a question he had no answer to though. He did not know how he was not dead; he did not know how he had no knowledge of this world and how years had gone by since when he was apparently killed and when he had suddenly popped back into existence.

 

There were many theories on how amnesia worked, but they all agreed that it had to do with parts of the brain becoming damaged, whether physically or psychologically. However, Oliver had never heard of a type in which false memories were implemented in place of real ones, and definitely never heard of any that kept the entirety of a person's life and yet had all fictitious events. He could remember playing hockey. He could remember summers in Sweden and winters in America. He could remember how to play hockey and, given a stick, he knew he could prove that he still had those skills. And yet, as everyone claimed again and again that he used to be a soldier, Oliver knew that he did not know how, nor have the skills needed, to be one. He was a hockey player, and unless he was brainwashed to think he was, Oliver had no idea how he could be both.

 

" _I don't remember ever being chipped_ ," Oliver said weakly, attempting to adjust himself in the chair, which ended up being impossible. Instead he curled his fingers in on his left hand, feeling his palm where the chip should have been. He felt nothing but hockey calluses and virgin flesh, reaffirming his memories. Maria could have been on the right track, Oliver thought again, trying desperately to hold on to some sense of self as he thought about everything that did not make sense, and touched his own hands. Surprisingly, Sinclair gave Oliver a good minute to be in his own thoughts, expecting something to come from it. Of course, when nothing did, he pushed on again.

 

" _So your little family in Molious found you and saved you, thinking you were just a civilian. We never got a scan of you that night because of the gas mask, and I never would have figured you to be one of our dead soldiers, so we just waited until you came out from their crow's nest._ " He tucked the clipboard under his arm and walked about the room. Sinclair kept his chin up and his eyes did not look at Oliver, but scanned around the room as if surveying his empire. “ _Funny enough, you eventually came out was with that woman. It was easy to get a scan of you then, and we knew right away that you didn’t have a chip. So, when the soldiers found you being protected by her, we killed her and grabbed you._ ” Oliver had figured that, somehow, the Government had known he had been there, but previously it had just been paranoia talking. Then, to know that he really had been spotted and that may have been what lead the Government to Molious' door put more weight on Oliver's shoulders than he thought he had ever had.

 

" _But… the ballpark?_ " Oliver asked weakly, looking up at Sinclair as the man moved about the room in front of him. He was not so much pacing as strolling, obviously thinking and scheming as he did so, but when the question was asked Sinclair stopped and turned to face Oliver again, a smirk upon his lips.

 

" _Oh that? Well, we knew who did that, of course. Wasn't hard to figure it out given the signature style it was done with. The certain flair for the crowds that is only ever done by one person._ " Sinclair paused again, looking at Oliver intensely for any recognition, for any hint that Oliver knew who had done it and why the attack had played so well into his plans. When none manifested on Oliver's face, Sinclair sighed, resigned that he would have to take baby steps with the previous soldier, now brain dead anomaly. " _Of course it was Mikkel Boedker,_ " Malcolm Sinclair told him with some vague exasperation in his tone. " _Constant thorn in our side that little shit has been, but luckily still just a pawn. Still under our influences, even when he does stupid shit like making all the idiots out there worry about their safety. He loves them, for some god unknown reason, and given the chance didn't blow that whole stupid arena to the ground. Worked well for us because all we had to do after that was take out Molious. Easy, really, but unfortunately Boedker decided not to be there._ " Oliver's brows had creased, a bit of distress on his face. Sure, the thought that it had been Mikkel had crossed his mind, but Maria was sure it had not been. Or, at least, Oliver thought she had been sure. Looking back, Oliver was not positive on that front either.

 

" _Really expected him to be back there, so when we stormed the place we could kill him. Unfortunately we didn't get the greatest victory which would have been him using his allies as human shields as he attempted to escape us again. That would have been great to show the public. But, instead, we just get the headline that a group of Chinese supporters have been subdued and that everyone can go back to being safe and secure under our benevolent control."_ Oliver could not imagine the lengths at which the Government had worked to keep people under their control. He knew it was happening, of course, had seen it almost first hand, but the purely cruel nature in which they lied and fed poison to their subjects was well beyond his scope of knowledge about human conditioning. He could not even imagine doing what the Government had obviously been doing.

 

" _Why them? Why not just go after the real Chinese friends?_ " Oliver understood sympathizers, but saying it was difficult. He had to work with the words he had and still get the information across, which was proving to be difficult in the high stress situation. Sinclair definitely gave him a look at his word choice, but Oliver kept his face up defiantly.

 

" _Friends? Really, Oliver, I expect better than that and I know you can do better. We made a point of teaching all citizens English._ " Oliver was a bit disgruntled by the putting down of how far he had grown in his English skills. What he wanted to know was how the Government was keeping his people under their thumbs, not how to say sympathizers. Without the timeline where America made his people learn English, Oliver had come a long way with his vocabulary, even when teammates such as Biz tried to be counterproductive and teach him 'Dat ass' instead of 'Symbiotic'.

 

" _Really can't say it, so help me understand instead,_ " Oliver responded, obviously disgruntled under the shaming Sinclair had begun. Thankfully, instead of pushing the line of conversation into the topic of Oliver's woeful grasp of English, he actually did answer the young man's question.

 

" _No threat of real Chinese sympathizers any more, not after we actually killed them all._ " He paused, surveying the room once more before he continued. " _Actually, China herself isn't even a threat anymore. Those idiots…_ " Sinclair trailed off again, laughing quietly to himself as he shook his head. It seemed to be a joke that only he knew, one that he slowly decided to share with Oliver. " _Those idiots basically blew themselves up. Knowing the little problems we had when taking over European countries, we played them. Launched some missiles, and then fed some lies. Gave them intel that said that Iraq sent the bombs. Even dressed the ICBM's to look like the ugly and botched designs they had been using. Really, the problem just sort of fixed itself._ " Oliver could only stare at Sinclair when he finished. China had killed her allies, and probably countless civilians in the process, and Sinclair considered it a win. Oliver considered it something else entirely. He bounced between tragic and downright disturbing.

 

" _Then… why are you still here?_ " He ventured to ask, which seemed to be exactly what Sinclair wanted him to ask. He smiled brightly and returned his whole attention to Oliver. He approached once more, but did not touch Oliver as he had previously. Instead he slipped his hands into his pockets and puffed his chest out a little.

 

" _Well, at first we just needed staging grounds, places closer to the problem areas out here. Sure, England was on our side from the get-go, but they have their own shit and it just ended up being in the way._ "He paused, as if in thought, and Oliver waited patiently, though he itched to get up and leave the repulsive man. He wanted to beat the shit out of Sinclair for what he and the Government had done to his home country, to Molious, but he knew even slightly giving away his hatred for the man would not work in his favor. " _So we took over Spain and France. Easy enough, really, given their proximity to some of the more problematic Governments. We figured out then the power of propaganda. After that, just made more sense to get as much as we could. Of course, the land, water, and resources were a big part, and still are._ "

 

" _But you're killing the Earth!_ " Oliver almost shouted back. He could not believe Sinclair could be blind to what was going on outside. There was no way anyone could look at the dirt and not see the lack of grass in what should have been a very green and beautiful part of the world. Sinclair wheeled on Oliver and the younger man wished he had kept his mouth shut or, at least, the venom out of his tone.

 

" _The Chinese killed the Earth!_ " He shouted back, face less than a foot from Oliver's. His blue eyes shown with spite toward the young Swede, and Oliver did not want to, but his natural reaction was to back up. His head collided against the headrest of the chair, but Sinclair remained way too close for comfort. " _They started this war, and we finished it. And we're the villains here? No, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, they brought the nukes into the picture, and we had to return in kind. They killed the Earth, and we're just picking the corpse. Making the best out of a bad situation._ " Oliver no longer felt mad, but scared and sad instead. The man that stood in front of him actually thought he was doing something good. Not for the world, and not even for America, but for himself. Even Oliver, bound to a chair, could see he was very wrong.

 

" _Then why stay here? War's done! Let everyone know America won and go home!_ " Sinclair actually did not have an immediate come back, but something changed on his face. He no longer looked mad at Oliver, but actually amused by what he had said. Slowly he smiled, more of a smirk really, and moved back again. He stood up straight and adjusted his tie, looking down his nose when he addressed the young man once more.

 

" _And what? Go back there and starve? Pay twenty bucks for a loaf of bread? Think not, Oliver. Think I'll stay right here where everyone, and I mean everyone, bows before me. Where I have a whole army at my command and no one thinks about charging me a cent for my food or water. Where I don't have to hope that the shipments come in._ " The shipments? Oliver thought about it, really concentrated on Sinclair's words until he got the whole picture. America was not the victor in the war, but yet another casualty of it. They were in the same state as, if not worse than, Sweden was. They had nothing left and their people were starving on the streets too. That meant that Sweden had something America did not, and Oliver figured it was the places where they made the food and water.

 

" _Why're people here so bad then? Why can't they have food and water more?_ " At first Oliver could not tell what Sinclair was thinking when he assessed the question, but it slowly became more apparent as his anger came back. It was not the same anger as before, though, because Oliver had not questioned his motives directly.

 

" _They get enough as it is,_ " He responded in a clipped tone." _They get water right from their taps. They get food if they work. Those beggars standing out there crying poverty, well they just don't want to work for what they're given. They want us to feel sorry for them, but we don't. We have enough problems._ " Oliver could not believe that reasoning. There were children that could not work, and elderly that had no place still working. And then, in addition, there were the sick or the injured that could not do the backbreaking labor that seemed to go with the factories Maria told him about. Thoughts of the woman threatened to creep in, but Oliver held them off. He had to worry about his own survival, and not if she had made it out or not.

 

" _But some…_ " Oliver started, but Sinclair refused to let him get the rest of his statement out. His rage grew and Oliver was sure he would get beat up for his insubordination.

 

" _No, there is no 'some'!_ " Sinclair screamed at him, flecks of spit hitting Oliver’s face. " _There are those that do, and there are those that die. America and the soldiers she creates are the only ones that did anything to keep free countries free, and those that didn't step up suddenly want all the rewards. No, we're not giving shit to the lowlife atheist towel-head monkeys._ " Oliver had been told about the Government's take on people that did not exactly align with their ideals, but to hear Sinclair say it in such a bigoted way really put it into perspective for Oliver. Sinclair actually did believe that crap, and he seemed like a powerful man, which only made the rest of the fight for freedom seem more impossible.

 

" _You're… you're fucking crazy!_ " Oliver hollered back, knowing it was not his best move of the day, which was saying a lot. " _Insane! You have everyone and you do bad all the time!_ " Sinclair's face was still dark, but he slowly smiled and it was not jovial in the least. He was steaming mad, and for some reason, that made him smile.

 

" _You have no idea what this power does, Ekman-Larsson. You don't even have the smallest fraction of what I have, and deep down that kills you. You want to feel that power and, you know what? I'm going to give you a taste of it._ " Oliver did not like the sound of Sinclair's promise, or possibly his threat. Oliver did not want to feel that power. He wanted to be home, not face to face with the mad man in the fancy suit and cufflinks. He wanted to close his eyes and wake up in his apartment and vow from that day forward to only ever do right by the world.

 

" _No,_ " He told Sinclair, but it fell on deaf ears. The man had never heard a no that he had listened to, and he would be damned if he started that day. Oliver continued to tell the man that he wanted no part of the power that the man claimed to hold, but Sinclair just moved away.

 

" _Go get them,_ " He told the soldier in the hat, and he moved away without question or concern. Oliver followed him as far as he could, but the soldier eventually left the room and left Oliver with even more worries. He did not want to know whom _“they”_ were, the ones that were being gotten, because it only meant bad news for the young man. He prayed and begged in his mind, as well as vocally, for it to all be a dream.

 

" _Oh, come on, Oliver! What I'm giving you is a gift!_ " Sinclair almost teased, obviously elated over whatever he planned to do to Oliver.

 

" _Don't want your gifts!_ " Oliver countered. " _Just want to leave!_ "

 

" _Definitely no leaving,_ " Sinclair told him, moving around Oliver as if a predator stalking his prey. " _But, we've talked so much about myself, that I find myself wondering more about you. Wondering more about why you're not chipped, about why you're here and not dead, and, mostly, why you were on that street a few nights ago._ " Oliver definitely had no answers for the man, but he remembered something else Maria had told him. Those with information that the Government did not have were not killed. At least not right away. Sure, they were tortured, probably, but not killed until the Government got whatever it was they wanted. That was how they had gotten rid of the Chinese sympathizers, and that was how they got rid of Molious. They got information, and from there they got what they wanted. Oliver just had to keep being a mystery long enough to escape. He did not answer any of Sinclair's questions, and bit his cheek in order to make sure he did not have any urge to, even with lies.

 

It took a minute, but Sinclair eventually came to terms with the fact that Oliver would not take the bait. He was sure, bordering on positive, that Oliver was not the soldier that they had in their ranks once, and that made him an enigma to Sinclair. As he had said, Sinclair was not one for mysteries, but there was a strange allure to the Ekman-Larsson question that made him not want to neutralize him right away. Instead he had a better thought, one that would, if all went according to plan, make all of Sinclair's woes go away.

 

The door the soldier left through opened again. Along with the soldier in the hat’s return came the introduction of three lab-coat wearing men and three more armed soldiers. The guards, as per apparently common practice, showed no expression on their faces. They seemed as dead-eyed and distant as the ones in the room had before the number of occupants grew. The scientists, however, seemed more human, even a little nervous, but they still moved with some authority and purpose. Oliver could only imagine that while not in the same room as the sociopath Sinclair they would be quite normal, maybe even laugh over some lab joke. However, while standing so near to the man that could have them killed at any moment, they were nothing aside from professional.

 

" _I figured it would be a losing battle trying to get you to talk. Molious likes to make sure their new recruits learn to keep a secret, and tell them that if you don't talk, we won’t kill you. In reality, though, when someone doesn't talk we do something a whole lot worse than kill them._ " Sinclair had turned from Oliver, grabbing the clipboard from the metal cart once more. The scientists moved toward it and began pulling out instruments from the drawers contained below the shiny metal top. Oliver watched and, with a shiver down his spine, realized that he had made all the wrong moves since waking up on the street. If he had only walked away from the city lights, Oliver thought as scalpels were placed on the top of the cart, he could have been free from all the drama he had become tripped up in.

 

" _So, these men are going to give you a chip and then… well, then we're going to make you a soldier._ " No one at Molious had told him that the Government could make him a soldier. Oliver thought that just a lot of people had fallen for the propaganda and had joined, not that they were forced into it.

 

" _I won’t fight for you!_ " Oliver told him emphatically, hands balled into fists. If only he could move, Oliver would beat the grin right off of Sinclair's face. Instead, his inability to take action only made Sinclair smile more.

 

" _Well, I wasn't asking you, Oliver. Because, when we're done, you won’t have much of a choice._ " Sinclair moved back to Oliver, standing right in front of him as he watched the younger man with smug satisfaction. " _We lost a damn good soldier when we lost Boedker, and, really, none of these idiots have even come close to the genius he had. He was ruthless when we gave him an order, and we knew it would get done. Sometimes we wouldn't even need to give an order. He would just know when a target wasn't worth the trouble and eliminated them._ " Sinclair paused, an almost whimsical expression on his face as he remembered Mikkel's perfection as a soldier. He was the perfect model, what they were looking for exactly in all of their soldiers, but which could never be replicated.

 

" _He was the perfect soldier, but a bit more clever than we anticipated. At some point there was… well, a glitch in the plan. At some point he missed taking the drugs and we never noticed. One day usually didn't cause a problem, but that one day caused him to realize just what he was. Then, when we thought he was just sick, we let our guard down._ " Sinclair grabbed a fist full of Oliver's hair and jerked his head back. His free hand put weight down on Oliver's wrist again and the pain came back, but the younger man clenched his teeth to bear it.

 

" _We don't make the same mistakes twice, Oliver. We'll keep you under until the day you die. And, hopefully, Boedker will be hunting you right now for the slaughter at his precious little base. After your rehabilitation we will let him find you. And then you will kill him and all of my headaches will finally be gone._ " Sinclair let go of Oliver's hair and reached back. One of the scientists handed him a scalpel and, with some manhandling of Oliver's left hand, Sinclair cut the palm open. He did the dirty work himself as he forced the small chip under the flesh. Oliver could not help crying out as the small piece of metal forced its way under his skin, igniting the nerves with intense pain. He clenched his eyes and teeth tight, trying to internalize the pain, but it only reminded Oliver of how worn down his body already was. It would be a lot easier to just give up right then, he knew. They would not kill him, but, at the same time, Oliver had no interest in being their puppet. He wanted to fight, but he saw no way out as Sinclair stepped back and wiped his hands off on a towel, staining it red with Oliver's blood. One of the scientists moved to bandage Oliver's wound, not letting him force the chip out. He was completely at their mercy.


	8. My Violent Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 8 Warnings: Violence, Gore, Torture (Physical and Psychological), Language, Blood Disease Transference, Mentions of: Drug Use**
> 
> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possessions)  
> Song for Chapter 8 My Violent Heart: [Masters of War - Pearl Jam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMVubqtwOJE)

The pain in Oliver's hand rivaled the pain in his head. He pulled at the bandage furiously in an attempt to remove it and get the offending piece of metal from his palm, but it was futile. The bandage, whatever it was, would not separate from his skin and Oliver could only sit with the burning sensation driving him quickly into a panic. They were going to make him into something he did not want to be, and from the looks of the situation there was no way he would be able to escape.

 

Oliver had begun to finally feel safe when Maria believed him. He thought that he could have done something to help them, even if he was just a civilian assisting Molious in their war against the Government. He would have had the chance to right the wrongs done to the world, and even, maybe, one day, become a moving force in freeing Sweden. Unfortunately that had all gone out of the window once Molious had been attacked, and if Sinclair was not just blowing smoke, it would definitely not be an option once they had transformed him into one of their soldiers.

 

Sinclair had let just one little glimpse through though. He had said that Mikkel had escaped them-- that he had woken from the drug dreams and got away from their mind-control. Oliver knew he had to think of a plan quickly and hold it close through whatever horrors the Government was about to put him through. He knew he would have to remember to escape after they were done with him.

 

The scientists gathered objects as Sinclair moved beyond them and to the far wall of the room, wiping his hands still. Two of the men grabbed syringes with long needles and Oliver recognized one of the contents as Opal. The other vial held a clear liquid, and the third scientist set about forcing Oliver's head back against the chair. He looped a strap around Oliver's forehead, which left him entirely immobile. Still he struggled, twisted and pulled at the bindings as he shouted for them to stop, to think about what they were doing. There was no way he would get out of the binding without help, and some cynical part of Oliver knew no help would be coming. Molious had been destroyed, probably, and those still kicking around were more than likely disorganized and not exactly looking for Oliver. He honestly was not even sure if he wanted Molious looking for him.

 

The Government had captured him, not killed him. They had thought that Oliver had gone AWOL somehow, and bringing him back to them was only due justice. However, after talking to Sinclair, Oliver was positive the Government did not think he was the soldier version of himself. Still, from Sinclair's tone and sudden action, Oliver had a feeling they were going to try and make him exactly that which he was not. They would make him into the enemy of Molious, and if someone did not get there to save him before the scientists jammed the needles into his flesh, Oliver feared that it would be too late. However, before the threat became reality, the room went dark.

 

The dark was not the same dark that had been in the Molious base, because seconds after the electricity cut a backup generator kicked on. The emergency lights had been painted over in red as a sign to the occupants that they were not running on grid power and, probably, were not exactly safe. The men with the guns grew nervous quickly, and it was obvious that the scientists were hesitant to proceed as well. They all stopped where they were and did not continue to move toward stabbing Oliver full of whatever chemicals they wanted to. Instead they looked around, much like the soldiers, and the air of confusion and heightened alertness was almost palpable. Even Oliver paid more attention to his surroundings, falling still and silent. Sinclair had moved to the door, giving it a hearty tug that ended up being futile. Apparently with electricity failure came the sealing of the doors. Oliver did not want to be stuck in the same room as Sinclair, the three scientists, and the five guards, but as long as the power was out, it seemed like they would postpone their experiments.

 

" _Really shouldn't have come after me, Sinclair_ ," A voice sounded through the silence. No one had dared speak when the anxiety level of the room was so high, so when the voice spoke loud and clear, everyone jumped except for the guards that immediately began searching for the source. Oliver had jumped as well, or as much as he could with the restraints still tightly fastened around him. He gasped a bit to make up for his lack of physical movement. Still his eyes shifted quickly in their sockets, attempting to locate the source just as all the others. Oliver had the feeling that he knew the voice, though distorted through echoes; he knew it was Mikkel’s. What he did not know was whether it was a good thing or not that he was there.

 

It took several seconds for anyone to find their voice, and the first one to do so was Sinclair, but when he spoke it was only to the reddened shadows that were cast about the room. There was no body, no person to address directly, and so he did the next best thing, which was to speak to the air itself. The scientists had backed off from Oliver, grouping up around the door instead of hanging out near the center of the room. The soldiers slipped inward from their positions on the outer edges of the room as well. They clung to the light, which was a natural human reaction and not one from their training. If they were in the light, they could not be hurt; monsters could not get them. It was flawed logic, and yet still they turned their guns outward, scanning for movement, for any sign of the intruder that spoke down to their boss.

 

" _And who, exactly, would think I came after them_?" Sinclair's tone did not waver, it even sounded a little annoyed, but as Oliver looked at him, though his face hovered in the red shadows, he could see a hint of fear. He knew, as Oliver knew, that it was Mikkel. However, unlike Oliver, Sinclair had certainly pissed Mikkel off. Laughter, dark and menacing, much like the voice, echoed from all corners of the room. The guns of the soldiers rose and tried to track the sound, but found no target. There was not even the fleeting shadow of Mikkel moving about in their space.

 

" _Oh, you know. You know who I am, and, more importantly, you know what I am. You know everything, after all, Sinclair_." The voice seemed to move from one part of the room to another. It seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Everyone strained to follow it, but unless the speaker had inhuman speed and agility, they were tracking a ghost. Mikkel had not been with Molious, Oliver tried to reason with himself. He had been gone, and he had managed to elude Sinclair. There was no way he was dead, and that meant he was actually there. He was there with them, and he would even the score as a man of flesh and blood.

 

" _Then I will have to guess you're Mikkel Boedker, correct? I assume you found the present I left you after your little stunt. Like it? Paid for by the United States’ Government_." There were tones in Sinclair's voice that made him sound superior as he spoke to the shadows. He did feel superior since he had finally hit Mikkel where it hurt after years of trying. He felt a gleeful pride at that, and yet the scientists did not seem to share it. They all sent him confused glances, cautious and scared. They knew something, but did not share it with the room. Oliver's emotions, though, ranged all over. Mikkel had found him, but there was no telling what that meant. Possibly being seen bound and captured, Mikkel would believe him and rescue him. They could find those from Molious still alive and counter attack with the information Sinclair had leaked during his showboating. Or Mikkel could take that opportunity and do what he wanted to do to Oliver since the younger man had uttered his name. Neither would have been outside of the realm of possibility even with as little as Oliver knew about this Mikkel. He was dangerous, hot-tempered and able to fly off the handle at any moment. Oliver decided his best choice would be to remain silent until the dust settled on the situation.

 

" _'Present'? Oh, no, Malcolm Sinclair. What you gave me was freedom. It was the severing of the last string that held it all together. Everything that kept me tied is gone, and now there is nothing stopping me_."

 

" _Who do you think you are_?" Malcolm shouted to the darkness, cool blown for at least that one moment. " _You are nothing! A roach to be crushed under heel and that’s it_!" There was silence after that, one that lingered and encroached on the circle of red light. It dragged on, longer than Sinclair liked, so he called to his soldiers and signaled them to move. He wanted Mikkel found and killed and, for the first time, he seemed uneasy.

 

Oliver did not know the past that Sinclair and Mikkel shared, but from the familiar, yet hostile tone they traded, Oliver assumed it was one stained with blood. There was obviously something about Mikkel that Oliver and some of the occupants of the room did not know. There was something dark that could chill the elitist man, and Oliver assumed that that was bad for all of them, not just those on the Government’s payroll. He remained still and silent, only breathing when his lungs burned. He did not gasp nor pant, but held every lung-full until the oxygen in it depleted. He would exhale slowly, nearly silent in the tension, and repeat only when necessary. He wanted to break free, but that would only remind everyone he was still there. He had to wait, be patient, and, most importantly, remain scared.

 

The soldiers slowly moved, guns and flashlights raised and aimed as they scanned back and forth. The room was not huge, but it did take a tense minute for them to look for Mikkel in the darkness. They did not find him, however, and after turning back to look at Sinclair, waiting for another order, Mikkel spoke again. It seemed to permeate from the walls themselves, and with the search completed, it gained a new level of eeriness.

 

" _You know what those bullet holes did to me, Sinclair? No, they did not just kill my comrades. They tore the last parts of compassion from me. There's nothing left, Sinclair, but you and me_." As Mikkel's last words rang out from the entirety of the space, something dripped from the ceiling. It hit one of the soldiers, streaking down the side of his face and under the collar of his shirt. He reached to touch it, wiping it in a smear, and looked at it. Suddenly he turned, and then the other's followed. They scanned up the walls and to the ceiling, but the only thing they found was a patch of red. Blood, Oliver realized. There was just a smear of blood where there should have been a living body hanging on to the light fixtures. No more than a second later the room turned into a flurry of activity. Though the soldiers still remained staring up at the ceiling, scanning again for Mikkel, Sinclair and the scientists had a different reaction. They turned and ran, but by the time Oliver looked over, the race had already finished. Sinclair seemed to have locked himself in the biohazard tube, and was at the door near the far end. He pulled roughly at the door but could go no further, trapped in the thick glass-walled tube. The scientists, almost at the same time, repeatedly pressed in key combinations on their side of the chamber, shoving each other out of the way to continuously attempt access to the glass box. However, nothing worked, and though they pleaded with Sinclair, he did not let them in. That, Oliver thought, probably meant bad news for him as well, and though he had no idea what they ran from, Oliver understood it was more than likely not a fate he wanted.

 

"Let me go!" He pleaded loudly, but with everyone predisposed it fell on deaf ears. Even though he spoke Swedish, and that had been a big problem before, no one batted an eye toward it. They all just simply ignored Oliver.

 

" _We look the same, you and I_ ," Mikkel's voice came again, and though not regarded with the same rapt attention that the scene had previously given the occupants of the room, it was still heard. Oliver turned to look back toward the soldiers, following both the voice and the action. By that point two of the soldiers had blood smeared on their faces, rubbed off by their own hands that had since returned to gripping their guns. They had returned to looking for Mikkel, single-mindedly hoping to find him, kill the intruder, but everywhere they turned in the darkness came up with nothing. " _But you know, Malcolm Sinclair, how far apart we really are. It's not rank either, is it? They don't know yet, but they will. They will know soon enough, and when they do, it will be too late_."

 

The scientists knew what the soldiers did not and their panic made that more evident than ever. The change, the one happening just below the surface of the two soldiers smeared with blood, had not been immediately evident externally, though. It left them the same on the surface, same faces, same eyes, and same desperate desire to complete their mission. Then, suddenly, they dropped their guns, which smacked against the chests. They moved toward their remaining comrades, and they shoved their blood-slicked hands across the faces of their fellow soldiers. The three that had not been changing recoiled and, after just a moment of analyzing the situation, turned their guns on their once allies. They were infected as well, all five, but the incubation period gave the three untransformed soldiers time to react. They opened fire on the two soldiers that attacked them and, riddled with bullets, the two died face up on the floor. Their blood, the infected blood, pooled around them and Oliver watched in muted horror, slowly understanding.

 

" _You can put them down, Sinclair, but for every one of us, there are thousands of more potentials. You make us with every drug you feed us. You make us with every needle in our skin. You make us everywhere, and when you try to put us down, we make more of ourselves_." Mikkel taunted darkly, his tone sending a shiver up Oliver's spine. If he just stayed still, Oliver thought, quiet and unimportant, then maybe he could live. Maybe, he prayed in a mantra, he could live another day.

 

" _You can't leave us out here with Berserkers_!" A scientist pleaded to Sinclair, and though the jargon made no sense, Oliver understood. Sinclair had simply been remaining quiet, watching as the scene unfolded from inside the safety of the biohazard tube, but he was spurred into speech by the accusation.

 

" _You made them you fuckers_!" He accused back, apparently not someone who took blame from lesser-ranked personnel lightly. " _You made him_!"

 

" _On your orders_!" The one scientist countered. " _You woke him up! You… you can't…_ " But the rest was never delivered. The three soldiers still alive had transformed, and their new drive spurred them into action. They scratched and bled on the scientists that too late thought to arm themselves. It would have been possible, in the minutes leading up to the transformation, for them to have killed themselves. They would never have had to feel the clawing rage, the soul-destroying need for violence, but the soldiers held them stationary. They did not let the scientists hurt themselves, and though desiring death over becoming Berserkers, the scientists also knew that they would never have to feel again after the disease took control. However they wailed and begged all the same, and Oliver could only remain seated-- staring and shaking. What finally snapped the moment, made Oliver look from the scene that he did not understand and yet feared, was the sound of boots hitting the floor. Slowly Mikkel emerged from the blackness into the red light, his gate purposeful yet victorious. He smiled, but it was not happiness that made him do so. It was a dark, miserable insanity.

 

" _You hear it, don't you? You hear it eating inside of you, and you can't stop it. Lab rat, I once was, but no longer. Now I have them all, Sinclair. Now I'm their master._ " Oliver did not know who they all were. He did not understand anything Mikkel spoke about, or what he witnessed, but it happened all the same. No guns turned on Mikkel, and slowly the screams of the scientists faded into the eerie silence that had hung over them all before. The soldiers released their grips on the scientists and the six, all seemingly emotionless, turned to look at Sinclair. They did not blink; hollow yet entirely focused eyes that had only one target. Mikkel's eyes, though, did not perch solely on Sinclair. There was one moment, just a fleeting second that Oliver thought for sure had not actually occurred, that Mikkel looked at him. It was a glance that was just a slight shade off from the glare he leveled on Sinclair. With Oliver it was not victorious, nor was it as spiteful. It was more simply acknowledging than any real emotion. It made Oliver's stomach jump in his throat and his heart beat faster. He did not want to die.

 

" _You have three soldiers and three scientists, Boedker. I hardly call that an army_." Despite it all Sinclair tried to remain on his throne. He wanted Mikkel to bow before him, to remember his place, but all he got was Mikkel's hasty approach and the solid smack of the ex-soldier's hand on the glass shield of the biohazard tube. Sinclair recoiled despite himself, despite knowing that even the bullets from the long forgotten guns wrapped around the shoulders of each soldier would not break the barrier that was saving his life.

 

Mikkel's palm had been cut, blood seeping out from the center. Slowly, methodically, Mikkel dragging his hand down and smeared his blood across the glass. His blood had somehow changed the soldiers, and it remained on the clear barrier as a reminder to Sinclair that he was mere inches from experiencing the same horrific transformation.

 

" _Fire, Sinclair. I buried it under the drugs, but now I remember. I remember feeling it, hearing it. Sensing how you destroyed those that took after me, but they did nothing wrong, Sinclair. They were made monsters by you, and yet you destroy them without a second thought._ " Mikkel paused, shifting a little as if unsteady on his feet. Really he bobbed and weaved to keep Sinclair's image on the other side of the red tint. He wanted to see Sinclair covered in blood, in his own blood. He wanted him to feel the transformation, the pain and madness that came with it, but it would have to wait it seemed. “ _They can’t feel, Sinclair, but I could. I could feel every inch of their burned flesh, and then you went and woke me up_.” Slowly Sinclair smiled, not the expression Mikkel expected or wanted, but the mild surprise did not show on his face. Instead he glowered deeper, eyes set into a permanent glare at Sinclair.

 

" _The first_ ," Malcolm mumbled before he shook his head, smiled more, and repeated it louder. " _The first: Mikkel Boedker. We did a lot of tests back then, you know. After we started to figure it out, when some of your comrades suddenly went Berserk, we started to wonder, but we could never tell where the infection started_." Malcolm paused and then shook his head, laughing more. " _No, we could never tell where the bloodline had started, but it had been you, just like we suspected_." It was Sinclair's turn to slam his hand on the glass, eyes hard and unblinking as he studied Mikkel. He still considered him the lab rat, just a test subject to the man in the suit.

 

" _Tell me, Boedker. Tell me if it hurt when we burned them. When we cut them up, bled them. Tell me it killed you when you felt their bodies fall, because I want it to have hurt you so much to feel your children die under our knives and under our napalm_." Mikkel did not take the bait, instead letting the man rant. Yes, it had hurt him, and he had buried it. He had not known why he hurt, why he felt their heat and their blind rage as, even in their dying moments, they tried to make more Berserkers, but with the Opal gone, with his supply well beyond the point of used up, he knew what the pain had been and where it had been hidden.

 

Mikkel had made himself forget all of those years ago. He had bled on his fellow soldiers after being wounded, and those men would eventually go into blind rages and need to be killed. Before the Government had figured out that they had accidentally made the Berserkers, Mikkel had been one. The drugs, the same cocktails that had allowed Mikkel to function, were the only things that could keep the infection from spreading. It was the same regiment for all the soldiers, but what it could not cure were those already infected. Mikkel could always feel the rage under his skin, ever since the day in the restaurant with Sidney, but he had never known why until he sat with Maria's long since dead body and read her journal. Slowly he knew why, even though nothing in the woman's book had prompted it. He had burned through his Opal overdose from the day before and as the rage grew more, as his blood boiled with a need for revenge, Mikkel could slowly feel all of the Berserkers. He knew exactly what it was in the moments that followed. Every needle he had used which had been reused by a junky had transferred the disease. Every Berserker that walked into a club and bled on the patrons made more. One of the voices out there, one of the inhuman shrieks that came to Mikkel in those moments and drove him to madness had been Mia’s. He knew, then, what he had to do.

 

" _You have no idea what you made me, Sinclair_ ," Mikkel said easily, voice distant from his own conscious thoughts. " _No idea what you created and tried to control all of those years ago, because what I am now, Malcolm Sinclair, is so much more_ _than any of you could fathom."_ Mikkel turned to walk away from the glass prison that held Sinclair. He moved to a sink and washed his bloodied hands. He dried them and began to bandage the wound before Sinclair finally found his voice.

 

" _You think you could ever compare to me_?" He shouted, the volume muted by the glass, but the tone ringing loud. Mikkel had made him mad, seething mad, and Sinclair did not know what to do with it. Oliver continued to remain still, wide-eyed and scared where he sat, but none of the dead-eyed monsters in the room looked at him, not even Sinclair. Only Mikkel's eyes found him and though red-rimmed, glazed, and holding a dark rage behind the mask, there was something else behind them. It was something Oliver could only possibly describe as seeing for the first time. A strange awed bliss that never managed to get to the rest of Mikkel's face.

 

" _No, there is no comparison, Malcolm, because the only things the same between you and I are skin and bones. Everything else is different, and you know that. You…_ " Mikkel turned to look at the enraged man, really look at him with a leveled glare. " _You are mortal, and I know I'm not. There are so many of me now, Sinclair, and you will grow old. You will lose the will to care after so many years of looking over your shoulder, and when you finally go home, you will find us there_." Sinclair knew the implication of Mikkel's words and could only remain stunned. They had been careful to not let the Berserker disease spread back to America. There was no traveling to America without a blood test, and those showing positive were immediately quarantined and killed. All research on it was conducted in the Scandinavia countries, and they did every measure to not let it spread. Mikkel's words, though, rang with the chance that they had already missed someone, that someone had already arrived on America's soil and began the infection there. Malcolm Sinclair knew he would have to make calls, find out the threat level, but at that moment he knew more than anything that he would need to get out of the room.

 

The two warring men were at a stalemate. Malcolm could not get out until the power turned on, and there was always the chance that Mikkel had infected others on his way in. Sinclair, therefore, would have to essentially sit tight until soldiers cleansed the building of all infected. Mikkel, on the other hand, could not get to Sinclair until he let himself out. It could be hours, and each second drove Mikkel further into the madness of the disease. He might have been the first, the alpha Berserker, but that did not make him immune. Without the drugs, he was a dead man walking, and though being forced off of them since the previous day had aided his plan, he knew much more time and his body would give in.

 

Mikkel's thoughts returned to the scientists and soldiers. They would be killed, Mikkel knew that, and they were his burden, his mistake, but they served his purpose with loyalty. They were the final ground soldiers: the last that Mikkel would ever make, he tried to promise himself. He wanted no more innocent blood on his hands, no more mistakes to labor under. He closed his eyes and turned away, not wanting to see their actions, as they understood his wish. Like rabid dogs, unable to determine friend from foe without Mikkel’s distinguishing, they threw themselves at the glass of the tube. They punched and scratched, breaking nails and shattering knuckles on the partition that would not break. Some smashed their faces on the glass, howling and screaming in their breathless rage, yet not from pain. Their last mission was to get Sinclair at any cost, but Mikkel knew it would be futile. Sinclair would be safe in his glass prison that day, but one day he would get what he deserved. One day he would feel pain he had not known to exist, and only then would Mikkel let him die.

 

Oliver shook in his restraints, breath shaky and labored as he watched the terrible sight, the gore streaked on the glass with every movement. The Berserkers would beat themselves to death, leave blood and bits of themselves scattered about in an attempt to infect more, but they would follow their order to the end. They were mad and incapable of emotion at the same time, purely working on impulses that came between the noises that plagued their brains. Mikkel's body broke Oliver's view and slowly, frightened, Oliver looked up at the man.

 

"Don't look," Mikkel told him quietly, just above a whisper. Oliver took another ragged breath before he squeezed his eyes shut and prayed. He did not want to be changed-- not by the Government and definitely not by Mikkel. He wanted to be Oliver, just himself, and swore to god that he would do anything to make that happen. He would do anything asked of him ever in order to just make it out of that room as himself still.

 

Mikkel's hands worked on the restraints, careful to keep the blood from Oliver's skin. He freed Oliver's head, followed by his left hand, and instructed Oliver to free his other hand as Mikkel worked the straps off of Oliver's legs. He told him again not to look, not to listen to what was happening just ten feet to his left. He did not want Oliver to see more than he already had, even though he still had some doubts about the younger man.

 

Once Oliver was free, Mikkel pulled him from the chair and pushed him toward the darkness where he had emerged minutes ago. Oliver felt lethargic, lightheaded almost, but soldiered on because he knew that the last place he wanted to be was in that room for even a second longer. He moved in front of Mikkel until he reached the far wall of the room where he stopped. There was no way out unless Mikkel could suddenly phase through walls, which, honestly, would not have been the weirdest thing Oliver had seen that day. However, Mikkel stopped as well and dropped to one knee, lacing his fingers together with his palms up. He looked back toward the scene and Oliver followed his gaze, regretting it instantly. One of the soldiers had beat his brain in, head lolled to look at them with dead, unblinking eyes from where he had collapsed on the floor. Another solder had broken that one's leg off at the knee, using it as a bat to try and break the glass. None had lifted their guns, too mentally primitive to remember to use them.

 

"Don't look!" Mikkel all but shouted, and Oliver turned back to look at him with wide eyes. The older man shook visibly, sweat on his brow that shown red in the tinted light. Oliver understood Mikkel's stance and shifted to put one foot in the cradle of the older man’s hands. He hoisted Oliver up, and it took no more than a fraction of a second for Oliver to find a narrow opening at the top of the wall. He squeezed himself in and twisted, reaching down to help Mikkel up. Mikkel grabbed a hold of him with his uninjured hand, grasped the ledge, and slipped in along side Oliver. He took point once more and they crawled through the tiny space.

 

Eventually the crawl space narrowed more and Oliver could no longer turn around. The passage slanted downward and they both moved along in silence as the sounds from the room slowly faded to nothing. Eventually there was light ahead, the same ominous red glow they had left, and within another minute they were out of the ventilation system and into a room. Oliver gasped and tried to back peddle when he saw what waited for them. Two soldiers had turned on them when they heard the noise, but did not advance. They wore the same red-rimmed gaze that those in the room had, and Oliver knew they were Berserkers. However, upon seeing Mikkel they did not attack. They simply stood there, slightly off balance and swaying, slick with red sweat just like Mikkel. However, unlike Mikkel, theirs bordered on black. Oliver knew within seconds what it was. It was not sweat, but blood that seeped from their pores.

 

"What…" Oliver began, but Mikkel did not have time to deal with it. He grabbed Oliver by the sleeve and pulled him from the ventilation shaft, dragging him to the door. They moved quickly, occasionally passing more Berserkers that began advancing only to stop once they saw Mikkel. Oliver had figured out in the room that there was some connection, some reason that Mikkel could walk into a room full of them and not be hurt, but upon seeing the reactions of other Berserkers, Oliver finally pieced it together. He was their leader, and through some connection they knew.

 

"Did you… did you change them all?" Oliver asked, a bit meekly with the fear raging through his system. Mikkel did not answer right away, but when he did it was hard.

 

"Not all of them, just a couple. They did the rest themselves." There were some dead bodies on the floors as well. It was impossible to tell if they were Berserkers or normal soldiers, but Oliver could only assume their deaths were violent and without mercy. Another cold shiver crawled up Oliver's spine as he thought about all he did not understand.

 

"So, what, Mikkel? You're… you're one of them? A monster?" Mikkel grit his teeth, biting back something that felt like rage but held much more. It was instinct, and not just Oliver's insinuated attack on Mikkel's being, that pushed him to turn around and tear the boy apart. He swallowed it down and balled his fists a few times to try and ward it back. It did not work as well as Mikkel hoped.

 

"Oliver, please…" He began in a clipped tone, but Oliver did not take the hint.

 

"No! Mikkel, just tell me! Tell me what's going on!" Mikkel spun, grabbing Oliver by the throat and shoving him to the wall. For a second, maybe even just a fraction of one, Mikkel saw what Oliver could be. He could be the best, a walking virus just like him. He could dose him up just the same, keep him around for that moment when they could finally rip Sinclair apart, but the heaviness of Maria's journal in his pocket reminded him of what Oliver really was.

 

He did not believe it, not all of it, but Maria had made sense to him back in Molious when he read the pages over her long dead corpse. Oliver probably really did not know about their world. He really seemed to have no clue what was going on there, and that was basically impossible. Even those that were rich, living high on the hog, knew what was happening in the lower sections. They, however, just did not care. Oliver cared too much to be one of them. He was not on drugs, and instead of it basically killing him to not get the regimented hit of Opal that soldiers received once every three hours, he thrived in his sobriety. He could not have been from there, too honest and pure to have seen what everyone had seen when America stormed in and took over. He could not have been part of Mikkel's world and yet there he was. In that moment he knew that Oliver was something much more than the Berserkers, and much more than the Government.

 

"Oliver, I'm doing everything in my power to not rip your head off right now, so if you can just stop your fucking questions until I'm ready to fucking answer them, that would be really nice of you." Mikkel's voice held more than a hint of restrained fury, rage boiling just under the surface as he tried very hard to not crush Oliver's windpipe under his hand. If the boy really was a hockey player, as he said, he could have thrown a punch to get Mikkel off of him, but the fact that he did not actually showed more about the young man than action would have. A soldier most definitely would have lashed out at Mikkel, so the fact that Oliver stilled his fists proved that he had been whom he had said all along.

 

Oliver nodded slowly, fear on his features that Mikkel both enjoyed and regretted. He needed to get them out of there and find some Opal before he could not hold back the demon inside him any longer. With some difficulty, Mikkel pulled back from Oliver, letting the younger man touch his neck where Mikkel's hand left a white outline of itself. He swallowed and coughed lightly, but he remained silent which had been all Mikkel asked of him. Flexing his fists a few more times in preparation for the final push toward getting the much needed drugs, Mikkel nodded to Oliver, turned, and began to move. Oliver's footsteps were the only thing Mikkel needed in order to know that Oliver had taken his request seriously and was still following him.

 

Mikkel thought Oliver might chose to run away, which probably would have been better for both of them. If he were smart, if he recognized the violence in Mikkel's heart, his best choice would have been to run the other way and never look back. Instead he followed Mikkel step by step, and Mikkel found himself hoping it was not out of some duty to the other Mikkel with his face that made Oliver do so.


	9. The Warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 9 Warnings: Violence, Gore, Torture (Physical and Psychological), Language, Blood Disease Transference, Drug Use**
> 
> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing Master Penguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possession)
> 
> Song for Chapter 9 The Warning: [Hunting Humans - The Misfits](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTd7DCE-eSs)

It was only a couple hours to twilight when Oliver and Mikkel escaped from the building Oliver had been held in. The younger man had expected it to be some warehouse in the middle of nowhere, some heavily guarded fortress where evil deeds took place, but that had not been the case. It was a skyscraper, or as close to one as one in Stockholm would be. It was twenty some stories tall with windows, but most where on the ground floor where the lobby would be, not higher where Oliver had been held. They had exited what appeared to be a side door for the building, one that was made of heavy metal and shut audibly behind them. They paused and Mikkel set to work on removing the chip from Oliver's hand as the younger man looked around. It hurt like hell as Mikkel used his uninjured hand to tear off Oliver's bandage and fish the chip out, so Oliver observed their surroundings in order to distance himself from it. Though Oliver grimaced and hissed through his teeth, he recognized the pain as a necessary evil, and tried his hardest to keep looking away. Oliver had no time for sightseeing, however, since a second after discarding the chip on the ground, Mikkel grabbed Oliver's arm and pulled him along.

 

"Don't fucking stop for anything," He growled quietly, and Oliver understood. He walked as fast as Mikkel, just shy of a jog as to not draw attention, but quick enough to get away from the building where, no doubt, more soldiers would be responding soon. Mikkel continued leading, dodging between buildings as he moved down narrow streets. The roads were in remarkably better condition than those Oliver had seen in the other section, so he figured that this was the richer area that Maria had told him about. Thoughts of Maria surfaced again, and Oliver needed to know. He assessed the situation for just a second before his impatience won out over his common sense.

 

"Is Maria okay?" He asked with no preamble, but did not get a reply. He waited minutes before he tried again, catching Mikkel's shoulder as they approached a wider street, pulling him back into the tight space to ask once more. "Mikkel, is Maria okay?" Mikkel's eyes told him what he needed to know before the older man could even speak.

 

"She's dead, Oliver. Does that make you feel better? They're all dead except for me and I'm saving your sorry ass as a favor to her." He had turned on Oliver again, grabbing his shoulders in both hands to slam him back against the wall of a building. He held Oliver there for several seconds, strength far greater than his physical presence really inferred. "I told you to not do this, Oliver. I told you to shut up and follow. Don't you dare make me regret my promise to her." Oliver did not know what the woman had said to Mikkel to make him not want to kill him on the spot, but he thanked her silently for it. Oliver had not had much time with this Mikkel, but he had saved him, and for that Oliver knew that he was not a bad guy. Sure, he seemed to have some connection to the Berserkers, some ability that could make them with his blood, but that did not make him inherently bad. The Government had obviously done something to him to cause that, and Mikkel should not have been blamed for it. Swallowing hard, though not out of fear, Oliver nodded. He would follow with no more incidents, just as Mikkel had asked.

 

The first thought in Mikkel's mind was not about finding a safe place for Oliver, though. Oliver was merely an after thought, just a nagging realization at the corner of his consciousness. Most of his willpower was spent beating back the rage that threatened to infect him with every second, that which came on without any reason only to fold back when Mikkel realized it was there and worked to make it yield. It would have its moment, Mikkel knew, but not while surrounded by civilians, regardless of how corrupt, and especially not when Oliver would be the first it lashed out at.

 

Mikkel needed drugs, and though the rich definitely had a way of getting them, Mikkel did not exactly know how that was. The only time he ventured to this section, the one heavily controlled by the Government and her supporters, was when he had a mission. Usually he would stock up before from a supplier he knew. Usually he would only find a new one in the outer sections where there was little chance of him being spotted or remembered. Never had he had to get any from those that charged as much as the rich had.

 

Most of the alleyways were deserted as they moved about the city. Every once in awhile they would come across people, but they were never alone. At one juncture Mikkel and Oliver came upon a man that had a woman against the wall, kissing her neck and breasts, her skirt hiked up to her waist. She was obviously a prostitute, and he was obviously a john, but they did not pause in their activity as Mikkel and Oliver passed them. That was until Mikkel turned around and charged right at them.

 

He grabbed the man and before he got whatever indignant remark he meant to say out, Mikkel tossed him heavily to the ground and grabbed the woman by the throat, just as he had Oliver. He held her against the wall with such strength that at first she choked and gagged. She was scared, obviously, but she had been abused before and took a swing at Mikkel in retaliation. He deflected the blow easily and pinned her hand against the wall as well.

 

" _Where's the nearest dealer_?" He asked in a growl, and Oliver approached to pull him off, but thought better of it. Mikkel was out of his mind, and unless he got what he wanted, he would be too far-gone to be reasoned with. He had not killed Oliver, so the younger man could only hope he would not kill the woman either.

 

" _I ain't a fuckin' junkie_!" She snarled back in a choked tone. Mikkel was barely letting her breathe and it became obvious as her neck grew red from the restricted blood flow.

 

" _Get the fuck off her, this is my time!"_ The man shouted once he had gotten over his shock and regained his stance. He swung at Mikkel, a bad idea that he realized too late because Mikkel let go of the woman's hand in order to grab the man's, basically crushing his wrist in the process. The man howled and twisted, attempting to get Mikkel to release him, but Mikkel was too strong, too fast, and too ruthless. He kept his hold and increased it, forcing a desperate squeak from the woman as she clawed at Mikkel's hand. Her nail's found purchase, drawing bloody lines on Mikkel's skin that Oliver realized only too late would happen. She had infected herself with his blood in her desperate need to escape. She would be a Berserker within minutes, and she had no idea. Realizing her as a lost cause, Oliver moved quickly to restrain the man who was about to take another swing at Mikkel, this time at his face, with his free hand. He would have drawn blood as well and be in the same boat as the prostitute, but Oliver managed to intercept him and pull him backward.

 

Mikkel's grip slowly fell from both of them and the woman slid to the ground, coughing as she fought to draw in air. The man struggled in Oliver's hold, but could not escape, and so the threat was eliminated. Slowly Mikkel's eyes turned to the woman. She rubbed furiously at her neck, the fear finally showing on her features.

 

"She doesn't know, Mikkel," Oliver said desperately, hoping that once the older man realized that that he would not infect her. That he would let her live. What he did not know was that there was no control over it. Once the blood was on someone, it would only be a matter of time until they became what Mikkel was.

 

"She won’t know anything in a minute." Mikkel responded flatly, turning to look at the man. Only then did he get a good look at him and realized that his attack had not been in vain. The man's left eye was black, save for the iris, and Mikkel knew that he knew where a dealer in that section was. Approaching quickly, the man still struggling in Oliver's hold as if he could actually fight Mikkel, the older man grabbed the john by the chin, forcing him still.

 

" _Do you know what's going to happen to her_?" He asked the john. The prostitute had already become still, her body growing lethargic and breath labored as the unending and maddening pain began to take hold. " _In about thirty seconds that woman is going to be a Berserker and she's going to really want to fuck up your day_." She had begun gasping for breath, one that never needed to come again once the transformation finished. It added a sweet emphasis to Mikkel's words as he spoke simply and methodically to the man.

 

" _I'll let her not rip your heart out, I'll let you go home, but first, you're going to take me to your fucking dealer and you're going to buy me the Opal I need_." The man obviously did not believe Mikkel, not that he could be blamed for that. Mikkel had crushed her throat, and there could have been a very real chance that he had broken her windpipe, but then she stood and stared. Her eyes fixed directly on the man and yet she did not move, save for the light sway in her body as her equilibrium fought to keep up with her. Only then, with the dead-eyed stare turned on him, did the man believe Mikkel.

 

" _Oh shit_ ," He began, repeating it several times. " _Fine! Fine, I'll take you to her! Jesus fucking…_ " He started, but Mikkel had taken a step back and pulled his pistol from the holster on his hip. Oliver slowly got the idea that the man would not be a problem any more, so he let go, and the john's hands immediately went into the air in the universal sign of surrender. Mikkel did not externally express his annoyance with the man, but his eyes did darken for a fleeting moment.

 

" _Put your fucking hands down_ ," Mikkel instructed him, and the man's hands shot down to his sides, and his babbling immediately ceased. Slowly Mikkel turned his head to look at the female Berserker that stood behind him. It only took a fraction of a second before she ran off the way Mikkel and Oliver had come, leaving just the three men standing in the narrow junction.

 

"What did you…?" Oliver began slowly as Mikkel moved the man in front and shoved him to get him going. Once again, Oliver brought up the rear and glanced over his shoulder to make sure the woman did not turn back around to infect him.

 

"Told her to double back, make sure we're not being followed. Told her the entire route, and if she came upon any Government soldiers to make their day really suck." Oliver wanted to smile at that, but he knew what it meant. She would infect any soldiers she came upon, at the expense of her own life, or what was left of it. Granted, Oliver understood, she was already practically dead, but that still did not mean Mikkel had any right to take the rest of her life away from her.

 

"I don't really understand. I mean… how?" Mikkel was still not exactly in the mood for question and answer time, but with the promise of a dealer and a full supply of Opal, he figured there was a chance he could humor Oliver.

 

"Pretty dense of you to think I understand," He commented back as they moved, the john leading the way. He glanced back and saw a heavy frown on Oliver's lips regarding the response. He sighed, more of a snarl really, and fought for anything to satisfy Oliver's seemingly unending need to understand. "Look, I don't really know much. The Berserkers have always been this anomaly, something the Government made with all the drugs. People aren't all wired the same way and the Government's one-size-fits-all way of keeping people under their control doesn't always work." He spoke quietly and in Swedish, and the man appeared to not understand what he was saying, but glanced back regardless. He was looking for a chance to make a break for it, but though Mikkel spoke to Oliver, his attention never strayed from the man who led him toward the only piece of solace he knew.

 

"But what are you? How can you control them?"

 

"I have no idea," Mikkel replied shortly. "What they did to me back then… I don't remember much. They're like just pictures in a book; just snapshots of what happened. All I remember is after escaping just needing Opal. Tried to go cold turkey, tried to just not have anything in my system, but after a few hours I was ready to kill anyone and everyone. So I got some, just a little, but over time that little turned into more and more." Oliver watched Mikkel’s back, and saw the sweat clinging to his skin. It was not blood like the men in the building had had poking from their pores, but Oliver did not doubt that eventually Mikkel would be the same way. Then, he wondered, who would keep the monsters from attacking him?

 

"So, the Opal does it to you? Makes it worse?" Oliver asked carefully. He did not want Mikkel worse, but wanted him better. Though this Mikkel was generally an asshole, was violent and infected people without cause, he was still Oliver's best friend, and a desire to preserve him rose above any other emotion.

 

"No," Mikkel responded curtly, trying to make Oliver understand. "Look, I've been shot, cut, bled all over the fucking place, but this has never happened before, that I can remember, but I know it has. Right now I feel things… Like something that had been long hidden from me is right under the surface, clawing for me to remember, Oliver." He trailed off, so Oliver took over.

 

"Would remembering be so bad?" Mikkel grabbed the john's shoulder, stopping him in his tracks, but kept the gun leveled at the man's head. He turned to look at Oliver, a grimace on his features that Oliver had never seen before. It bordered on sad, and Oliver's heart ached.

 

"There are some things, Oliver, that are best forgotten. I have a feeling that whatever this is was forgotten for a reason." Mikkel was not a sentimental guy, but he knew, as soon as he spoke the words, that it had been the truth. Whatever the lack of Opal pushed to the surface was not something that he needed to know. It was something best left to the dark recesses of his mind, hidden even from him.

 

Oliver asked nothing else, just nodded in seeming understanding. He still did not fully understand, unsure how the chemicals would alter someone into being a walking biohazard bomb, unable to distinguish friend from foe. He still did not understand how Mikkel could control the Berserkers or what even that meant. He did not understand how Sinclair would not have known of Mikkel's power and how he had not tapped into it to make the Berserkers his slaves yet, but that could all wait. If Mikkel said that he needed the Opal in order to not rip Oliver's organs out through his mouth, Oliver figured it would be best to just go along with it until he got the drugs. With a heavy swallow, Oliver nodded to show that he was done and ready to keep moving. Mikkel gave him one last look, one that lingered as if expecting Oliver to come up with another dumb question, but none came. He shoved the man, and they set off once more.

 

It neared fifteen minutes before they finally got to a small shop tucked between two buildings. It looked simple, almost like a tourist shop, Oliver realized, complete with a sign that read ‘Be back in fifteen minutes’. Mikkel gave the man a stern look and he broke easily.

 

" _Look, man, this is really it, I swear! We run things a bit classier up here so the Government isn't busting down doors. She's got what you're looking for_!" Mikkel did not necessarily believe him, so he forced the john to lead them in. Despite the sign, the door was open. They marched in with no preamble, Oliver shutting the door behind them on Mikkel's order. A woman in her mid thirties came from the back when the bell for the door chimed.

 

" _What, you idiots can't fucking read_?" She asked audaciously as she pulled an Opal syringe from her arm. It took only a moment for her to see the scene in front of her and deploy the correct emotion of confused and become on alert. " _Woah, woah, what's this shit going on in my shop_?" She demanded, vial discarded and hands slamming on the counter.

 

" _I need your Opal_ ," Mikkel said, curtly, gun still held to the man's head.

 

" _No! Oh fuck no! You do not get to drag one of my clients in here and demand anything of me you fucking thugs_!" The woman shouted, reaching for a button that sat right on the counter. There was no secret to the alarm, laid right out so anyone could see it and know that the Government protected her. " _What you're going to do is let him go and get the fuck out of my store, or this place will be swarming with soldiers within three minutes, do you hear me_?" Oliver shifted, looking between the woman and Mikkel. They were in enough hot water as it was Oliver rationalized. There already had to be soldiers looking for them, and if they were directed right to where they were standing, then they would easily be captured again, or even killed.

 

Mikkel obviously did not feel the same way because after another stern look at the woman he pulled the trigger and blew a hole through the man's head. The bullet smacked into the far wall, breaking a vase as it entered. The john fell dead instantly, head turned to show the exit wound through his forehead and the desperate look on his face. The woman shrieked, obviously not foreseeing Mikkel's decision, and before she could press the button, Mikkel's gun turned on her.

 

" _I respect your job_ ," He started slowly, and Oliver could see the tiny pinpricks of blood on the back of his neck. He was getting worse and fast, but he did everything in his power to restrain it. " _But I need the fucking Opal. Now either you get it for me, or I blow your head open too and take it. Which do you want_?" The agreement was easy, but there seemed to be a wrench in the plan.

 

" _I have them in the back_ ," She told Mikkel slowly, cautiously.

 

" _No, you have them under the fucking counter_ ," He told her, hand visibly shaking as it tightened on the grip of the gun. " _I'm really not someone you want to fuck with, so reach down, grab me whatever you have in there, put it in that fucking bag, and we'll be gone_." She did not react right away, but after a quick survey of her options she began to obey. She leaned down, grabbed a case, and raised it to the counter. Slowly she began relocating the vials to the backpack Mikkel had indicated, and the older man grit his teeth at the snail's pace she deployed.

 

" _You can maybe move a bit fucking faster_ ," He told her, and she set him with another narrowed glare.

 

" _You gonna shoot me if I do_?" She asked back in a snarky and clipped tone.

 

" _Not going to shoot you at all if you just fucking listen to me,_ " Mikkel responded back, and that seemed to be that. She hastened her speed, shoving the vials in by the handful until the case was empty. She reached for the bag and handed it over with the sour expression still on her face. Mikkel grabbed it and shoved it into Oliver's hands. Without being told Oliver zipped up the bag and slung it over his shoulder. He understood that Mikkel needed it, and though still opposed to the drug, he knew it would be his job to keep it safe.

 

" _Whatever you find on his body is your payment_ ," Mikkel told her, gesturing for Oliver to get outside and backing out after him. The woman continued to glare at the men, obviously displeased over the robbery of her goods, but unable to do anything about it with the gun still pointed at her. Once the door was shut, however, she jumped into motion, slamming her hand down on the button before she rushed into the back room and bolted the door shut.

 

Mikkel knew what she had done without even witnessing it. There was no other course of action, as far as he could tell. The Government supported her business, and he had disrupted that. She wanted vengeance, and the best way to go about getting it would have been to summon up the soldiers. What she did not know, however, was that they would be predisposed cleansing the building that Oliver had been kept in.

 

"What now?" Oliver ventured to ask as Mikkel holstered his sidearm and began moving with an authoritative pace down the side streets.

 

"Now we get into a crowd and we disappear," Mikkel told him. He needed to shoot up, Mikkel knew that, but he also needed to not get caught as he did so. One vial would never have done the trick with how far off the drug he had become. He needed time to fix himself, and though his palms grew slick with blood he knew stopping then would not be in the interest of his self-preservation.

 

"But Mikkel!" Oliver called after him. "Mikkel, you're… you're bleeding all…"

 

"I fucking know," Mikkel responded hoarsely. The pain was coming on strongly, almost more than he could bear as he walked right out into the middle of an avenue without hesitation. It was busy, people walking everywhere, and Oliver stutter stepped at the edge, not sure if he should go after the older man or not. It seemed reckless, if not bordering on suicidal, to storm out onto streets like Mikkel had done. However, once out there, there was no attention on either man. People were moving quickly, some running, others struggling under the weight of carried items to keep up, but they were all headed the same direction, which seemed highly strange, even to Oliver.

 

Mikkel heard them before he saw them. It was not exactly hearing, though. There were voices, every language all at once that echoed around his mind and he knew for certain that it was not the Berserker in him that did it. The voices did not hurt; instead they seemed to remove the pain as Mikkel moved quickly toward where everyone on the street converged. He could faintly hear Oliver through the noise, calling after him, keeping up although reluctantly. Mikkel turned, snatched the bag off of Oliver's shoulder, unzipped it, and drove his hand into it. He found a vial easily, uncapping the needle and readying the plunger. He needed the drug in him, he needed to beat back the rage before it surfaced again, but as he rounded a corner and saw around a tall building, all need for everything stopped.

 

A large crowd had gathered, thousands of people, and they all stared at the sky where the smog had parted and through it descended a large, teal hand. It was generally translucent, just a mirage in the heat, but one that everyone saw, and everyone heard.

 

Mikkel had heard stories of the Presence. He had heard accounts, but tinfoil hats always accompanied them. There were always ways to discredit them. Most claimed to have seen the Presence while high on Opal, but Mikkel stood there on the street stone cold sober, and dying because of it, and yet he still saw them, still heard them, and they spoke loudly in his head.

 

"Humanity," They spoke in every language at the same time, and no one could look away. "This will be the last warning you will receive for your mistakes." There was no tone to what the Presence spoke, but Mikkel knew they were angry, disgusted even. Every word was spoken in monotone and yet Mikkel knew what they meant, and that hurt worse than the Berserker rage that they had momentarily alleviated.

 

"You have become a virus, one that has attacked this host, and we have heard it cry out for help. We arrived just in time, it seems, to tell you about your final chance." Mikkel had never received a message from the Presence before, and he managed to drag his eyes away for just a fraction of a second. Everyone he saw held the same slack jawed expression, as if in silent screams of terror. They were simply struck mute as their brains, much like Mikkel's own, struggled to comprehend what he saw and heard. Some cried soundlessly, some had fallen to their knees, but none had any ability to break away. It made no sense, none at all, but Mikkel could only listen.

 

"We have watched you all for a long time," The Presence told them. "Who you are and what you would do to get what you want. You would kill each other, torture each other, and poison each other. You do the same to her, and for that you have come to our attention." Mikkel knew whom the ‘her’ they referred to was, but he figured it was the Presence that implemented that knowledge to him. It was the Earth that they spoke of; the one that they communally abused and raped for centuries. She was dying, and the Presence was there to save her, even if that meant wiping out humanity.

 

"You were given a chance to thrive here," The voices continued in the monotone harmony of languages, "And your greed and arrogance will leave you without that gift. If you do not change your ways and make amends with her, then we shall wipe this world clean. This, humanity, will be your final warning."

 

As the last syllable of the last language died out in Mikkel's mind, the giant teal hand faded from existence just like a mirage, and Mikkel knew exactly why it had been discredited by so many. Even after all he had seen and heard from them, Mikkel was still unsure if it had happened at all. Suddenly he was himself again, full of pain and rage, and with the weight of the vial in his hand. Mikkel jammed it into his arm and injected himself, following up seconds later with another. The crowd began coming to life around him, and Mikkel realized they were very unsafe.

 

Spinning around, Mikkel located Oliver. His palms were still slick with blood from where it pushed out of his pores, so he did not risk touching him. Instead he called to him and Oliver snapped out of his own trance. He looked at Mikkel and he knew to follow without question. So they moved quickly, running away from the crowd and back up the street the way they had come.

 

No one stood dazed and awed ahead of them as they ran back down the alley and toward the shop where Mikkel had gotten the Opal. Again the door was unlocked, but unlike before there was no woman inside. Mikkel figured she had been called out like the rest, so that only gave them so much time before she would return. He set to work immediately, grabbing more vials from the bag and, readying them one by one, he injected himself full of the Opal.

 

The Presence had left them both shaken, but the Opal slowly calmed Mikkel, an old and familiar sting just under his skin. However it was not the almost immediate bliss he usually felt. It took time, minutes stretching on as Mikkel sat on the floor, eyes clenched tight as he tried very hard not to think and to just let the drug work. However, after what happened, after the translucent hand had reached down and threatened them all, finding any solace at all seemed impossible.

 

"Mikkel?" Oliver's voice came quietly after a long expanse of time. At first Mikkel did not stir, but then, thinking better of keeping Oliver in silence, he cracked open an eye and glanced at the boy. Oliver looked pale in the failing light of dusk, but the shadows masked most of it. Still, nothing could hide Oliver's wide, scared eyes as he watched Mikkel. He was obviously still frightened over everything that had happened that day. Mikkel did not exactly want to field questions, but finally, with the Opal starting to take control of him again, Mikkel thought he could at least put the boy's mind at ease.

 

"What is it, Oliver," he groaned lightly, eyes shutting again.

 

"I… Well, are you okay?" Mikkel knew that that was not what Oliver had wanted to ask, but it was considerate of him, if not a little annoying.

 

"I'll be fine," Mikkel grunted out, shifting to run his palm down his face before he thought about it and paused to look at his hand. There was still his own blood on it, smeared lines from the contact, but it had ceased bubbling through his skin at some point, which was a plus. "Take some, it'll calm you down." Mikkel shifted to kick the bag of Opal toward Oliver. Neither man moved after that for a few seconds until Oliver extended his leg to kick it back toward Mikkel.

 

"No thank you. You need it." It was true, but what Oliver did not realize was that his decision to not take any of the drugs was more important than his polite refusal. No one refused free Opal. Everyone on the planet under America's rule, as far as Mikkel knew, was all hooked on it. Sure, most functioned well without it, just the little nagging feeling every few weeks that they should probably stop by the clinic and get some medicine. However others, like Mikkel, constantly craved the drug. To even offer it up was a big deal, one that Mikkel physically ached while doing, but Oliver turning it down meant that he had not felt the sting of Opal before.

 

Mikkel watched Oliver for several seconds before he retracted the offer and returned the bag to his side. He grabbed out another vial, injecting himself once more, bringing the total amount up to somewhere around ten. He had not counted and had no interest in doing so. Instead he sat back against the counter and closed his eyes once more. He had withdrawn so far into himself that he had not heard Oliver get to his feet nor walk across the floor. The first sound that had cut through his meditation was the door moving. His eyes shot open, his hand darting quickly to his gun, but he paused once he saw Oliver standing there. The younger man flipped the locks on the door shut and then drew the shades to block any prying eyes.

 

When Oliver turned around and saw Mikkel looking at him, he seemed surprised. Mikkel's own look transformed to confused at that, just slowly regarding Oliver as the younger man returned, sitting a few feet away once more.

 

"We're not staying long," Mikkel told him, which drew a soft smile from Oliver. It was still guarded, as well as it should have been, Mikkel figured. He had itched to kill Oliver ever since he had known who Mikkel was, and it really did seem pretty improbable that he had suddenly changed his mind. However, Mikkel had indeed changed his mind. Enough stuff had happened in the few days since Oliver had come into his life to allow some switching of sides, Mikkel reasoned.

 

"Think we are," Oliver said, a bit of playful defiance in his tone that Mikkel did not share nor follow. Oliver had just found out that Mikkel was infected with the Berserker disease, and they had just witnessed the Presence come down from the sky and tell them all that they would be removed from the universe. There seemed to be very little to smile about, and yet Oliver did. "You've been asleep." Oliver finally told him, drawing more confusion from Mikkel. There was no way that he would have slept. He chose when to sleep and he never would have done so while hiding out in a store that could have been surrounded by soldiers at any moment. They were not far from where Oliver had been held, and despite everything else, that would have given him good reason not to nod off. Oliver, though, seemed sure he had been asleep even though Mikkel knew it could not have been true.

 

"Wasn't asleep," Mikkel said defiantly, rubbing at his arm where the injection points began to ache. It was a good sign that Mikkel was beginning to feel his skin again, and not just the internalized burning pain. He was coming back to being human, but there was no telling how long it would take to stop his blood from being infectious. There were not exactly living Berserker specimens that there could have been studies done on.

 

"So you snore while resting?" Oliver said, far too jovial, bordering on playfully annoying. Mikkel frowned, so Oliver pushed on, grin widening to an actual smile as Mikkel’s frustration showed. "Bet that would have been annoying as hell to everyone! You just sitting there, reading a book, snoring away." Mikkel did not feel as excited as Oliver obviously did, but there was something about the younger man's tone that rubbed on him just a little. Mikkel twisted a bit to reach his leg out and kick Oliver. The younger man pulled his long legs up to his chest and jumped up, purposefully staying out of Mikkel's range as he moved around him, past the counter, and into the room behind it. With Oliver out of sight, Mikkel pondered more about the situation.

 

Everyone out on that street had seen the Presence. That actually could have been a good thing for them since the anxiety something like that would cause in the general populous would keep the Government busy. There would have been too many reports, too much distress, for them to launch a manhunt, and civilians would have been too busy losing their minds to notice some wanted men walking in their midst. It would be a perfect time to get out there and get away, but Mikkel had no idea if he was safe to be around people yet. He did not need to accidentally infect more people, especially given his new found motto of wanting no more civilians to die for the Government's transgressions. Mikkel was only brought back to the moment when Oliver reentered the room. He opened his eyes once more and regarded the younger man, frowning heavily at the towels Oliver carried.

 

"What…" He began, letting himself trail off as he got a soft smile from Oliver in return.

 

"Not suggesting you look in a mirror, but you really can't go out there looking like that. People are going to think you killed someone, and that won’t really help us keep a low profile." Mikkel looked down at his hands where the blood had dried in streaks. He could not imagine that the rest of him looked any better. Oliver extended a wet cloth to Mikkel, and the older man washed up, double washing places Oliver pointed out to him. He then dried, and only then did Oliver draw his attention to the poorly bandaged slice on his hand and the wounds the prostitute had inflicted. Mikkel stared at them for several seconds, letting the memories wash over him. He had killed countless soldiers with just that one cut, and Mikkel actually felt a bit of guilt at that. He had a feeling that it had to do with what the Presence had said, that they had all turned into the disease that would kill anything and anyone in their way in order to get what they wanted, and the weight of culpability felt worse than the pain had. He wished there was a drug in the world that would make him not feel remorse for all the bad choices he had made, but Mikkel knew that there was not. There were only the walls he had built over years that he would have to begin repairing soon.

 

"I can do it," Oliver offered quietly, shifting to open the first aid kit he had held under the towels. Mikkel slowly shook his head and removed the bandage from his hand, reaching to take the kit that Oliver did not exactly offer up. When Mikkel saw that they were at an impasse, he frowned heavily up at the younger man.

 

"I could still be infectious, Oliver. Just give me the med kit." Still Oliver stalled; looking over at the dead man that Mikkel had shot earlier. He had stopped bleeding out and lay in a pool of his own blood. The body had obviously been disturbed, shifted from where it had fallen originally. There was no doubt that the owner had taken Mikkel's payment and had removed herself from the location in the time that they had been gone. It had been for the better.

 

"And what do you think touching him is going to do?" Mikkel asked with a bit of a short temper that felt like entirely his own fault. He still was not entirely ready to deal with Oliver, but since they were momentarily safe, Oliver seemed to think it would be a good time to begin dialog between them.

 

"Well, won’t it… I dunno, bring him back to life or something? Make him one of those Berserkers?" Mikkel tried not to look exasperated as he motioned for the kit once again, and suffered through Oliver's ignorance. He did not get the kit or Oliver's sudden and unexplainable understanding, so he settled with just answering the question.

 

"It's not a zombie disease, Oliver." Mikkel told him in a clipped tone that he knew was unfair. "The dead are dead, no matter what you pump them with. This… disease, it just makes them want to kill. It sets people on fire inside, and they just want others to hurt too. There's no way a corpse could feel that." Oliver frowned then, deeper than Mikkel's had been. It was obvious by the look on his face that he was still trying to piece things together, see the bigger picture that was still hidden from him. Though the information had managed to fit with the other things Oliver had learned, there was still no overarching picture revealed to him yet. Seemingly resigned, Oliver approached with the kit. Mikkel reached for it, but as he did Oliver reached as well. He grabbed Mikkel's hand hard, not letting the older man pull from his grip as their palms were forced together. Mikkel used his other hand to grab Oliver's wrist, disengaging the hold that the younger man had on him.

 

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Mikkel nearly shouted, and Oliver looked at his hand where Mikkel's blood was smeared across it. If Maria's mission for Mikkel really came to an end because the stupid kid he had been asked to protect was dumb enough to infect himself with the Berserker virus, Mikkel was going to be pissed.

 

"You can't tell by touching a dead body, and you can't tell by not touching anyone, so I'm volunteering, Mikkel. I'm in this as thick as you, so why chance infecting innocent people when I'm willing to take it?" It was entirely beside the point, but Mikkel did not need to tell the younger man that. Instead he roughly snatched the medical kit from Oliver's hand and set about cleaning and properly bandaging his own wounds. The only thing they could do at that point was wait and see what the blood did to Oliver.

 

"Could have just waited until I stopped bleeding, Oliver," Mikkel growled back, re-bandaging his cuts. He then grabbed Oliver's wrist again and forced the younger man to sit in front of him. Deftly he began to bandage Oliver's hand where the chip had been inserted and subsequently removed. If Oliver contracted the disease, and it was uncontrollable like those in the lab, then Mikkel would have to put him down. However, if Opal kept it in check like Mikkel's, it would be better to not have an open wound anywhere on Oliver. "Take some damn Opal before that shit eats you out."

 

"I feel fine," Oliver commented back, rubbing Mikkel's blood off of his hand and onto one of the towels. "I don't feel any different than I did before I touched you. How long does it usually take?" Mikkel did not look up from Oliver's hand as he forced a bandage down over the cut. He still frowned, still hated Oliver's brash move, but he was thankful that the younger man seemed not to have contracted the infection.

 

"Usually a few minutes for the full transformation, I guess. I don't know. Maybe, because you haven't drank any water or taken any drugs, your immune system would be better at fighting it off. I have no idea how this actually works, Oliver." Instead of being put off by the answer, Oliver actually smiled. He retracted his hand and put both of them behind him, leaning back to support himself as he grinned in triumph at Mikkel. It was generally annoying how Oliver smiled brightly when he should be scared, so Mikkel set him with a hard gaze.

 

"Or maybe you just can't hurt me in any reality." Oliver said, a bit of defiant arrogance in his tone that made Mikkel shake his head in annoyance. Oliver laughed, grinning wider as he watched Mikkel, seeing in him pieces of the Mikkel he knew. "Maybe I just know you better than you think I do," Oliver quipped one more time, drawing a light sigh from the older man. Oliver knew nothing about him, Mikkel knew that, but if it made it easier for the younger man to deal with everything by pretending he did then it would be fine. They would need to move soon, they both knew that, but for a few more minutes they could both believe that they were safe, even from each other.


	10. God Given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 10 Warnings: Violence, Gore, Racism, Language, Blood Diseases, Drug Use, Religious Inequality and Segregation, Minor Character Death, Mentions of: Forced Prostitution/Rape, Sexism**
> 
> **This chapter is heavily centric on racism and the oppression of persons due to race, religion, and sex. It is an uncomfortable chapter for many test subjects! Be in a good place before reading!**
> 
>  
> 
> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possessions)  
> Song for Chapter 10 God Given: [Parasite - How to Destroy Angels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2_Y59HCyhA)

Day had descended into dusk and then twilight, and there was still plenty of movement out on the streets. The hysteria of seeing the Presence seemed to still be in full swing a few hours since their appearance. Even the alleyway saw foot traffic that Mikkel had been leery of at first, but by then just found to be an annoyance. He kept his hand on the grip of his pistol as he glanced through the drawn shades, watching to make sure that no soldiers poked their noses in the area and compromised their hideout.

 

The two men had talked at length for a while, Mikkel holding up his part of their agreement by actually trying to explain things to the younger man. Of course he did not have a lot of answers to some of the things that Oliver asked about, and tried to get the young man to understand that he really did not have all the information that Oliver thought he did. His lack of knowledge became the most obvious when Oliver asked about the Presence.

 

When the topic was first broached, Mikkel fell into a brooding silence. He had not actually thought they had existed up until that day. Sure, there were the stories told that they were aliens coming to abduct people, or messengers of god, or any number of tales that always pointed to something higher than humanity. They were all tabloid reports, though, stuff said with an air of humor and disbelief when even spoken of at all. What they never were was actually real, but Mikkel had seen them, and so did thousands of others. It took some severe skepticism to deny them then.

 

"We all just kind of thought they were hallucinations," Mikkel had begun, wiping the blood off of his pistol. "Take too much Opal and some people started seeing shit, feeling shit. But, I can guess we're going to have to call this one real because you saw it, right?" Oliver nodded, looking up from where he sat, cross-legged, on the floor. He had seen the hand reaching down from the sky, and it had been terrifying, but there had been other terrifying things that had happened that day. Actually, when looking back, Oliver could only place a few non-terrifying things that had happened since he had woken up on the street three days prior, and had generally accepted that that was just the way things worked in that reality. However, the strange nauseous expression on Mikkel's face told him that there was more to it than that.

 

"Maria, she said that there were people that saw stuff on Opal, that she had. Is that what they saw?" Oliver asked and could not have imagined it would have been a good drug trip at all when suddenly confronted by the giant translucent hand. Mikkel did not exactly shrug, but tipped his head toward his shoulder as he turned back to look out the window once more. Oliver's frown slowly deepened when Mikkel did not answer him. He waited a few seconds before he called out to the older man, obviously annoyed. "Is that what they saw?"

 

"I don't know," Mikkel said curtly, a light growl in his tone. "I have no idea what they saw, only what I saw and what you saw. Who the hell knows what the other people out there even saw, Oliver!" Mikkel had turned back to face Oliver, body ridged as he fought back any need to shake the younger man and pray, desperately, for him to just understand for once. "They could have seen Jesus, or Buddha, or Hitler for all I fucking know, but we saw a giant god damn hand and, really, I'm a bit fucking on edge about it right now." Oliver's face crashed into a heavy frown, eyes hard and glaring at Mikkel for the outburst. Finally he turned, shifted the book bag full of Opal and the medical kit they had decided would be good to take along, and lied down with his head on it, facing away from Mikkel.

 

"What the fuck are you doing?" Mikkel asked slowly after a few seconds, still annoyed with the childish need to just know that Oliver displayed. He thought the young man should be worried far more about surviving than figuring out every mystery in the universe. Unfortunately it seemed that Oliver did not function that way. Oliver rolled a little, glaring over his shoulder back toward Mikkel.

 

"I've slept almost nothing in the last three days, Mikkel, and god knows when I slept before that! I'm tired and really just want to take a nap." Mikkel's grip tightened on his gun for just a moment before Oliver pushed on. "Look, I get that you haven't been having the time of your life either, but you took your drugs and now I'm taking my nap." Oliver was most definitely done with the conversation and Mikkel recognized his chance for silence. They would not stay long, but if Oliver wanted to spend that time sleeping, Mikkel was for it. He welcomed the silence after the litany of questions.

 

Mikkel had given about an hour before he approached the younger man and tapped the bag with the toe of his boot. It shifted under Oliver's head; the remaining vials clinking together as Oliver's head rolled over them. He shot awake, eyes wide and suddenly alert. It only took a fraction of a second for his eyes to come to Mikkel's, obviously confused over the sudden return to wakefulness.

 

"Time to go," Mikkel said simply, reaching down to grab the bag, slinging it over his shoulder. Oliver had sat up, rubbing roughly at his eyes for several seconds as he stood slowly. There were a few grumbles in his tone, but no real completed thoughts to annoy Mikkel, so he merely ignored him and moved back to the door.

 

"Where're we going?" Oliver asked quietly, rolling his shoulders and neck as he moved to follow Mikkel. He did not even have a moment to wake up before Mikkel expected him to be moving, getting back out onto the dangerous street. He missed coffee and practice times. He missed hot showers, even the ones in terrible rinks. Mikkel flipped the locks and spoke quietly as he responded.

 

"Getting you somewhere safe," His voice was a monotone as he scanned the street quickly before he opened the door and left the store. Oliver hurried after him, keeping on Mikkel's heels as they moved back up the alleyway and toward the main drag. Mikkel hoped that the confusion was still thick enough to cover their movement, or that a curfew was in place and they would be able to dodge the soldiers. A curfew would not have been as promising as complete and total chaos, but they did manage to walk out onto the street into something that lay between the two extremes.

 

It seemed that most people had gone indoors, huddling with their families in the wake of the Presence, but there were still people moving around on the streets in confusion and fear. Soldiers were out there as well, but they seemed far too preoccupied to even notice Mikkel and Oliver. They were surrounded by civilians and seemed twitchy, fielding questions that they could not answer. They directed people, asked people to return to their homes, but the Presence had riled people up, and the civilians had no interest in moving away until they had answers.

 

Slipping around people the two moved. Mikkel had an idea of where they could go, where he could dump Oliver and get back to his own mission, but it depended on some pretty important information he did not have quite yet. Mikkel glanced back, seeing how Oliver looked around with widened eyes, as if trying to absorb as much information as he could as they moved. They hurried across the avenue, entering another street and Mikkel slowed, falling into step next to Oliver so he would not draw attention to their Swedish nor their conversation topic.

 

"Are you Catholic?" Mikkel asked slowly, getting a confused look in return. Mikkel's own gaze narrowed in response, showing Oliver that he really did want the question answered.

 

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, Lutheran, but I don't really go to church all that much…"

 

"That's fine, so long as you can go through the motions," Mikkel responded curtly, hurrying his pace again as he turned another corner. For a few steps Oliver did not follow, turning and jogging a few steps to catch up once he realized Mikkel had made an unexpected turn. He did not understand why his religious orientation mattered and was about to ask when they came upon a large mob of people.

 

There was a lot of noise in the area, general chatter that was distressed and loud, but above it all was the booming sound of someone speaking into a microphone. It was hard at first to distinguish what was being said, but after a few seconds, Oliver managed to start getting snippets of words.

 

The man standing on the stairs of a large church asked them to stay in order. Well, as Oliver listened more to the tone, asking the crowd to do anything was not quite right. He demanded of the crowd, reminding them that he had power over them while occasionally sipping on a glass of water. No one stormed the stairs, what with the armed guards standing around the man. They did not look like soldiers, but more like private guards for either the church or the man, Oliver was unsure. Instead the writhing mass of people had to stand and wait as one person at a time ascended the stairs to speak to the man.

 

"What is this place?" Oliver asked Mikkel quietly. The older man had been trying to find a way to wiggle into the crowd without too much attention being drawn on them, but so far had been stonewalled by the pure aggressiveness of the frightened civilians.

 

"A church," He replied dryly, getting a glare from Oliver that was simply ignored until Mikkel had finished scanning their surroundings. When he turned to see the look on Oliver's face, he returned it in kind. "It's The Church of Plano. They're practically an extension of the Government, but they run things their way: god, gun, and country, that kind of bullshit. Welcome their overlords as a path to salvation. It's all crap, really, but if the Church takes you as a member of their flock, then you will be protected, and that's all that matters."

 

" _If you are found worthy, you will be welcomed into god's embrace, children, but if you do not stand in an ordered line, you will not even get an audience, do you understand me_?" The preacher continued over the cries of the crowd who demanded a faster audience, for rules to be ignored in wake of what had happened two hours before, and tear streaked sobbing. Oliver grimaced when he looked around, seeing the utter terror on the faces of those close to him. Sure, the Presence had made him nervous as well, twitchy, but he had not been as deeply moved into any emotion as others had. He felt calmer, maybe a bit more at peace since then. Not frightened, enraged, or saddened.

 

"So you're just going to dump me here?" Oliver asked, his tone a bit more clipped than he really meant it to be, but he was annoyed. He had stopped the john that had led them to the Opal. He had stopped him from being killed by Mikkel's rage, and for that he thought he had earned a bit of respect from Mikkel. Instead he seemed to still only be viewed as a liability. Hardly a step up from the original threat he had been labeled as.

 

"Oliver," Mikkel said, eyes hard. "What I'm about to do, you want no damn part of. I can't just walk away from this to keep pulling you out of the fire, and Maria wanted me to save you. I complete her last mission for me by putting you here, and then I'm going to do what I have to do to put an end to this." Oliver's glare fell into a confused look, brows knitted as he stared at Mikkel.

 

"Maria asked you to save me?" He asked slowly, confused and surprised. "I thought… I thought she was dead." He felt a little choked up by the words, stunned not only that Maria had been alive, but also that she had thought of him while shot. Mikkel shifted reaching into his back pocket to remove Maria's journal. He held it out to Oliver who snatched it and leafed through the pages quickly.

 

"When I got back to Molious, Maria was still alive. She told me to get the journal, and with it I understood that she wanted me to get you and get you somewhere safe." Oliver wanted to read the whole thing. He wanted to just exit the crowd, find some stairs, sit, and read. However, Mikkel did not move, and Oliver understood that they needed to stay there in order to get Oliver to safety.

 

"Did she…?" Oliver began, but stopped when Mikkel shook his head.

 

"She died there, Oliver, so I knew I had to do it. Here." Mikkel took the book back from Oliver. There was a lot of information in it such as strategies of attacks, brainstorming on how to solve problems, and vague information she had managed to obtain through various sources. Interspersed were her visions, the things she saw, heard, or felt that made her a bit of a religious leader in Molious. She had never let it affect her missions, but many of those under her command would come to her with problems that they thought she could help them solve. Unlike the leaders of the Church of Plano, Maria gave advice for free, and it usually consisted of telling Molious' soldiers to be kind to themselves. It seemed a lot more on board with Christian teachings than even the Christians were deploying, so Maria was let to do what she liked. What she had not told anyone about, what Mikkel did not even know until he had read it himself, were just how vivid her visions had become.

 

There were many pages in the journal depicting what she had seen while on Opal, and it hit Mikkel harder thinking about them after he had seen the Presence himself. She had seen the world dying, humans slaughtering each other before eventually they were all wiped from the planet. She detailed plants attempting to grown only to continuously die as the poisons of the earth sapped their life out of them. She had seen the long and slow rebirth the Earth would undergo without human destruction to kill her more and more until there was nothing left. Then, as the Presence had said, there was still a chance to turn some things around and save humanity as well, but their time frame was growing short. If they did not step up and do the right thing, then they would be done for. Mikkel never would have believed it if he had heard Maria preach it to him, but after the Presence had said it so clearly, Mikkel had no doubt that she had had some connection to them.

 

Skipping past all of that information, the information that would bottleneck what Oliver actually needed to know, Mikkel handed the book back to the younger man. Oliver took it quickly, looking at what Mikkel had opened it to. The top of the page had been dated, which was not abnormal, but was also not entirely the norm in Maria's journal. There seemed to have been madness to the mayhem that only she knew. However that page held the date of November fourteenth, the day after Oliver had first arrived at the base.

 

Oliver's eyes read quickly. Most of the entry was in Swedish, but occasionally switched to English or some other languages that Oliver was not familiar with. She had seemed Swedish, Oliver swore that she had been, but he realized, as he tried to translate some words that held no meaning to him by using the context of sentences, that he had no reason to have thought that she was. She could have been any number of nationalities, and given how many times her pen seemed to slip into Polish, Arabic, Cantonese, or even English, she could have been any of those by birth. Mikkel's hand had curled against his arm at some point, but Oliver did not look up as he was shifted into the crowd once Mikkel seemed to have found the queue that the pastor had implied was formed. He was pulled and pushed against people that voiced their displeasure, but he paid them no mind, only looking up once the question began getting too much to hold in.

 

"I thought she was Swedish," Oliver said barely a whisper. He had taken into account that they were in the thick of the crowd and spoke accordingly. In hindsight he probably should have spoken in English, but no one really seemed to have taken notice. Oliver looked around a bit, seeing the faces of those in the crowd. They were scared, on edge, and definitely did not want to be waiting as one at a time people were brought onto the stairs where the pastor stood, and were interviewed. They could not hear the questions, but apparently the woman had answered a question wrong because the pastor shouted, boisterously, in her face. She broke down into sobs and he pointed her away, turning back to take another drink of water as the armed guards forcefully removed the woman from the step. She turned and struggled against their hold, screaming about her child. That exact child was ushered onto the stage and cried as well. She reached for her mother in the same fashion, but was forced to face the pastor who spoke down to her sobbing face from over his nose. Oliver clenched his teeth and pulled his eyes away, looking back to Mikkel.

 

" _She was… Or, at least, I thought so._ " Mikkel responded to Oliver’s question in English, and Oliver got the idea. Anyone around them could bust them, and it was definitely a time to be careful. Mikkel thought back to the entry, to how Maria had done similar things throughout the entire journal. She could not have been more than a few years older than him, four, max, but she had seemed to have had grasped many languages. He knew a few of them from his days as a soldier, just some local ones like Finnish, Polish, and German, but her grasp on them was well beyond that. Plus, to use some like Cantonese, which had been outlawed since the war started, seemed like a feat one would never be able to accomplish. At first he thought that she had been multilingual as a child, but after the Presence, he had had a different theory.

 

She spoke of them often in her journal, the voices that spoke all the time, and so, given the new information about just how they spoke, Mikkel had puzzled it out. They had spoken to her so often that she had started to learn the other languages. She had learned every language mankind had ever spoken because the Presence had taught her. He had no idea how to take that information, so he pushed it down and far from his mind.

 

" _Then… how did she…?_ " Oliver asked, skimming the page with his finger as if to show Mikkel what he meant by the question. Mikkel had not needed to see the page to know, so he purposefully looked away from it.

 

" _She just knew them, I guess,_ " Mikkel told him briskly, not wanting to draw too much attention to their conversation. He did not want to meet Oliver's questioning glance, and waited until the younger man looked back down at the journal to look at him. He could not remember feeling much besides pain and hatred, but something pulled at him that felt vaguely like remorse when he looked at Oliver. He would never be able to protect the younger man, and so he would need to get Oliver as far away from his as possible. So long as Oliver did not draw too much attention to himself in the Church of Plano, he would be fine. He would be safe.

 

Oliver read quietly after that, decoding the words he did not know as much as he could. It did not take long before the passage turned from their hasty retreat on the street the night of the thirteenth into a musing about Oliver. Musing, though, might not have been the right word, Oliver realized. It was far more serious than that.

 

" _I've seen the boy before,_ " Maria had written. " _He's a little different, but I think that's because he was actually there and not just something the Presence showed me. He has a frame of reference when I can actually see him standing in front of me, and he actually seems meeker than the Presence made him out to be._ " Oliver's brow creased when he read that. He had not been stuck so much on the idea that Maria had known about him before he had even woken up in the strange world, but over the idea that he seemed meek to her. He was far from meek, he knew, more than happy to start a fight on the ice if he was pushed to. Sure, he tried to be nice off the ice, but he had definitely said things that were less than nice many times in his life, but he never would have considered himself meek, even when cowering away from Mikkel's gun or Sinclair's needles. It was just self-preservation then.

 

" _Still, I'm positive that this is the kid they told me about. He's going to go on to do some pretty impressive things if I've received their message right, so I'm going to have to protect him. Even if the [redacted] doesn't know about his destiny, I can't let them get their hands on him, and it won’t be terribly long now until they come knocking. Going to have to get him out and to safety before then. I wonder if Amile will take him."_ Oliver finally looked up, catching Mikkel's eye before the man had a chance to look away and crane his neck to look over the crowd.

 

" _Who’s Amile?_ " Oliver asked, pointing out the name. Mikkel stopped feigning his detachment from the situation to look at Oliver full on. He wondered if Oliver grasped what was happening at all, if he understood what anything in the journal meant. Mikkel was sure he, himself, had no idea, after all.

 

" _Don't know,_ " He told Oliver easily, looking away once more. " _Read through the whole thing, and there was no mention of an Amile. Granted it could have been one of the words that I can't translate, but that's not my problem anymore._ " Oliver seemed to not like that answer one bit, so Mikkel pushed on. He grabbed Oliver's shoulder and shifted closer so their conversation was more private. "This is the end for me, Oliver. I'm going to see to it that you get into that church, and then I'm out of your life forever. Maria seems to think that you were chosen or something by the Presence, that you will fix this whole damn mess. I don't necessarily believe it, but what I believe doesn't matter. This is going to be all up to you."

 

"Why won’t you come with me?" Oliver asked back, voice low but obviously desperate. He had no one in that strange world: no family, no friends, and no contacts. Mikkel was the closest thing he had to any of those, and he wanted, desperately, to hold on. It was no longer the fact that this Mikkel had the same face as his best friend, but that he needed someone, anyone, to help him navigate the foreign world. When Mikkel answered, his face was grim, shadowed not with anger, but with pity.

 

"Oliver, where I'm going and what I'm going to do are what needs to be done. I don't believe in destiny, but I believe in doing the right thing. I'm going to do what's right by me, and you need to go and do what's right by the world. What I'm going to do will only ruin that for you, do you understand me? We have to go our separate ways, because I'm not going to drag you down with me."Oliver did not understand because Mikkel had never exactly told him what he was going to do, but he thought he knew this Mikkel well enough to guess. There was something in him, something evil and malicious that would eventually get Oliver killed if they stuck together. He wanted to think differently, imagine this Mikkel on enough Opal to keep the Berserker down forever. He wanted to imagine them remaking Molious and running America from Sweden and then Denmark. He wanted to imagine all that, but as he looked around, as he saw the scared and tear-streaked faces around him, Oliver knew that it was not the answer.

 

Mikkel was a soldier, a fighter, and Oliver was not. What he was was an optimist, someone that hoped for the best and tried to find joy even in the darkest places. He wanted to protect the civilians around him, bring them up from ignorance and depression. Mikkel just wanted to hurt those responsible. Their ideologies were too different, too far off to make them viable partners in any endeavors, and Oliver could finally see that. He needed to let Mikkel do what he thought was right, just like Mikkel hoped he was letting Oliver do. Slowly Oliver closed the journal, holding it up between them.

 

" _Can I keep this_?" He asked cautiously, a touch of sadness in his voice. Mikkel forced a soft smile on his face, not because he genuinely felt for Oliver, but because he figured it could not hurt.

 

" _Would serve you better than me, anyway_ ," He commented back in English, squeezing Oliver's shoulder slightly before letting his hand fall away. Oliver nodded slightly, slipping the journal into his pocket. He knew what was coming, the goodbyes that would not be said, but which he knew were meant. Mikkel would not come with him into the church. Oliver would be alone and on his own. He would need to take care of himself.

 

"Answer the questions when you get up there. Be smart and lie if you have to. Use only English from here on out, learn it, and commit to it. Keep your head down, stay smart, and when you know that they're not watching you, you find that Amile. You find whoever the hell that is, and you get out of here as fast as you can." Oliver nodded and forced a smile onto his face as well, feeling the nerves. His stomach had gone cold, and he felt like he should shiver, but nothing even close to it came over him. Instead he looked into Mikkel's eyes and extended his hand.

 

" _Thank you, for everything._ " He told the older man, and Mikkel took his hand, shaking it once before letting go.

 

" _Take care of yourself_ ," Mikkel told him before he turned and began moving from the crowd. Oliver swallowed hard and watched Mikkel until the man disappeared into the throngs of people. Oliver did not think he would, but within seconds he felt absolutely alone. He would never see Mikkel again, never see Maria again, and it hit him harder than he thought it would have. For a moment, a fleeting one, Oliver wanted to push his way from the crowd, run after Mikkel and convince him to come with him, but he understood what Mikkel had meant. They were on two very different paths, one that lead to war and the other to peace. They both would need to play their parts to fix the world and how completely out of control it had become. Swallowing hard, Oliver straightened and looked forward to where he was only a few people away from the pastor. He needed to concentrate, to listen, and to figure out how to respond to the questions everyone was asked. He strained his hearing until a gunshot blasted from one of the guards and the man in front of the pastor dropped dead.

 

Oliver stared wide-eyed as the man fell to the stairs and rolled down a few of them, staring out at the crowd with unblinking eyes as blood seeped down step by step. Oliver could not think, breath caught in his chest as the woman in front of him howled with sobs. Others, apparently members of her family, held her back. They all sobbed as well. The guns of the guards had turned on them, but they did not fire, lest one approached.

 

" _I do believe we have been over this enough times!"_ The pastor spoke into the microphone as he moved down the stairs to stand straddled over the man's lifeless corpse. " _No heathen Niggers are allowed in this sacred church! What don't you monkey-brained idiots understand? Could you not learn English because it was too hard for you?_ " The crowds undivided attention was on the pastor and the family who still wailed with sorrow, Oliver's included.

 

Maria had spoken of it, of how the differences in race had caused an easy separation between those the American Government had use for and those they did not. Sinclair had elaborated further by simply showing Oliver how extremely bigoted people had become. Still, seeing it first hand, seeing a man shot on the steps of a church while doing nothing other than wanting entrance for him and his family solidified it for Oliver. He had not attacked the pastor, had not gone into any violent rage when most certainly denied a place among them, and was still shot dead as a spectacle. He had been killed purely because he was black and in an apparently white only area consisting of the church, and Oliver could have sworn he felt his soul crush at that idea. All of the whites that had failed to answer the questions had been escorted from the church and yet a black man, maybe even one that would have passed the interrogation, had been executed on the spot.

 

" _These good people do not want your kind in this church with them! You are slaves of the devil, sent out to corrupt and destroy! You steal their water and their food, making their children go hungry!_ " The man suddenly had the crowd on his side, but, as Oliver listened to their taunts, their shouts of hatred toward the black family, he realized that they had been on the pastor's side all along. The crowd was scared and miserable, hugging their children in panic and fear. They lived in a dog eat dog world, and as long as they could join the side eating, they would eat. It was easier to do unimaginable things when life was on the line, but Oliver felt sick over it. The family had not done anything wrong besides be born of African descent. There was no reason for one of their family to be killed in cold blood.

 

" _He was an Engineer!_ " One of the women in the family shouted, the one that hugged her mother who sobbed into her chest. Her eyes were directly on the pastor as she spoke, narrowed with distaste and spite. " _He was one of the best in Sweden until your precious Government came in and got him basically exiled!_ "

 

" _How dare you speak ill of our wonderful Government!_ " The pastor shouted into the microphone, and everyone in the crowd seemed to mirror the sentiment. Slurs were thrown, many that Oliver did not know, but they all rang out in English. He turned and looked around him at the once scared crowd and now angry mob. They would tear the family apart; kill them, if only the pastor told them to. Oliver wanted to rush to their aid, to protect them, but Mikkel had told him to get inside, and Oliver knew when it was a losing fight. He would never be able to save the family, just get himself killed along with them. The guards had begun descending on the group, and the pastor backed up the stairs, although not in fear. He had the upper hand, there was no doubt about that, and he would never even have to get his own hands dirty to see the grieving family taken care of.

 

There were almost no people of color in the crowd, so it was easy to place where the family members were. It was a sizable family, the wife of the man, three daughters, and several younger children. Oliver wondered where the husbands of the women were, but as he looked at the children, he got a good idea. They seemed mixed race, save for two, and were probably the result of rape or forced prostitution. The system that America deployed on Sweden worked primarily for white men. Some white women seemed to be employed as well, such as one of the newscasters he had seen on the television in the Molious base, but beyond that the rest were treated as the bottom of society. Blacks, obviously, were at the bottom of the food chain by how the crowd turned against them like ravenous wolves. Men of any descent were probably used for their laboring, used in mines and factories, but there had to be almost no desire for women to be working anywhere. Oliver had not asked because it seemed like enough of the world was out of whack as it was. The gender divide had not seemed that important once Oliver had found out that the Earth was practically dead. He wished he had asked Maria more about it in the brief time he had had with her, so he would not have had to find out about it the way he had.

 

" _Leave now, you Nigger devils, or there will be none of you left to mourn this miscreants death. It will be so easy to send you all to hell right now while you force all of these children of god to wait in the same area as your stench!_ " Oliver could not believe what he was hearing. His brain essentially refused to believe that it was real, but his body reminded him it was. His lungs ached since he had basically stopped breathing. His body shook with rage and fright that mingled too close together to really be separated. They had a chance to walk away, but yet they remained, and the guards looked like they were ready to open fire on them right that moment, and to hell with any that got caught in the cross fire.

 

" _Take the little ones,_ " The mother said, no longer sobbing, but quietly determined. Oliver watched as she stood up straight and ran her hands over her clothes, staring down the pastor.

 

" _Mom,_ " One of the daughters said, tone quiet and shaking, but with a hint of determination in it that mirrored her mother’s. She wanted to say more, but the older woman cut her off.

 

" _Take the kids, Lanisha. Take them, and your sisters, and get the hell out of here._ " The mother's voice was rigid, not wavering at all. " _I've done all I can do for you girls, and this monster wants blood, so I will give him my blood so then I can piss on him from heaven._ "

 

" _There is no heaven for you beasts,_ " The pastor countered, and the woman did not even blink. She moved up the stairs defiant in the face of death, and her oldest daughter kept the others back. Oliver could see the daughter’s face, stoic as she separated herself from what was about to happen, turned to gather her siblings and the children. Lanisha wanted them gone before the inevitable execution on their mother, but there was no way that could happen. The crowd was all around them, many still growling insults, some even taking to pushing them as they tried to move, or blocking their way. Some of the guards kept their guns on the family, but others kept their sights on the mother that moved with authority toward her husband's body.

 

" _What?_ " She asked the pastor loudly, venom in her tone. " _Too afraid to shoot when someone isn't afraid to die?_ " The pastor did not move, did not take his eyes off the woman despite her glare, her hatred directed right at him. He seemed strong, one that would do anything in his power to protect his community, and though Oliver thought he was a terrible person, one that surely deserved to die, he also saw what Mikkel meant. He would be safe if the church took him in. He would be protected, though not happy. Par for the course, it seemed.

 

" _Figured you would have some last words to leave this mortal plane with, devil,_ " The man responded, not in the microphone, but loudly. The woman grit her teeth and glared harder up at him. Oliver could not imagine she would have any last words, none that would have come to mind through her grief and rage. However she was quick, spitting at the pastor. She caught his pants with the down arch of her saliva, but the message was clear.

 

" _Burn in hell!_ " Were the woman's last words before a guard pulled his side arm and shot the woman in the side of the head. She collapsed heavily, dead before she hit the ground, and her family howled with misery once more, pushing their way from the crowd. Oliver had a front row seat to the atrocity, and could only stare in shock. They had actually done it, his brain slowly rationalized. They had actually killed people for just being different and standing up for themselves. There was horror simmering under his emotionless confusion. He thought, not for the first time, that it all had to be some sort of terrible nightmare.

 

" _Let this be a lesson!_ " The pastor spoke once more out to the crowd. " _We will not tolerate heathens in our midst! Be gone any that are not children of god or you will meet a similar end_!" As the man spoke, guards removed the bodies of the wife and husband. The stairs remained streaked with blood and though someone from the congregation wiped them with a rag quickly, they still remained red, wet, and dusty. Oliver realized, suddenly, that he was next in line.

 

Mikkel had moved from the crowd, head kept low as he slipped off into the darkness. He would need to lay low for a few days, find supplies and a new place to hide out. He thought about Margie, but knew that he should not impose on her again. She was his last resort, usually, and unless he became dehydrated or started starving, he would give her a wide berth. There was no reason to put her in danger when there were possibly other places he could go. Back to the sewers, he thought. There were probably still other ex-military down there, some which did not feel a call to battle, even against the Government. He might be able to get information on somewhere out of the city limits that he could go. There were probably other factions, smaller factions that needed someone to help.

 

Mikkel was hyper aware of the guards around him, but they seemed distracted, attention on the church that they were protecting. It did not seem like they paid him any mind, but still he kept his head low and his movement brisk. He hated soldiers of any kind, and just being near them kept his pulse rate high. He would burn through Opal that way, Mikkel knew, so he tried to school his breathing and keep his hands from shaking.

 

A gunshot broke through the noise of the area, and everything immediately fell silent for a fraction of a second. In that moment thousands of thoughts went through Mikkel's mind. Oliver, he thought at first. He thought that maybe the pastor had been alerted to them, that he had figured Oliver to not be worth the trouble and had shot him. Mikkel had hoped that information would be slow given the sighting of the Presence, had put all his money on it really, but in that fraction of a second he thought he had been wrong. Then a woman howled and Mikkel relaxed. It had not been Oliver, he thought, momentarily relieved. Oliver had no friends, no allies in the world that would cry over his body like that. It had been someone else, and though Mikkel knew that Oliver would be scared and mortified as he watched the spectacle, he was still thankful that the church had not proved to be the wrong move so soon after Mikkel had made it. Oliver was smart and would be fine, he told himself again.

 

The crowd grew restless and Mikkel could hear their shouts. He could hear the pastor condemn the black family, but there was nothing to be done. He turned and started retreating again. He moved down the street in a hunched walk, not raising his face but keeping his attention shifting at all times. He needed to see if there was any suspicion on him before it turned into more. Unfortunately it was not long before it had turned into something more.

 

The cocking of a gun behind him had Mikkel reaching for his pistol again. He pulled it out, slid the hammer back, and turned all in one fluid motion. He shot the guard in the face before he had time to react, but the man had not been alone. Others swarmed him fast, not shooting, however. They knew, Mikkel thought as he moved and shot. They knew he was a Berserker and they would not risk spilling his blood for fear of contamination. That worked well enough for him because Mikkel had an extra clip and that was all he would need to keep them off of him until he could slip away.

 

Each shot was perfection, muscles moving independent of thought as Mikkel gunned down guard after guard, but more came, and soon enough soldiers joined them. He kept his book bag behind him, safe from attack if they finally got sick of not shooting. However, as Mikkel slipped around a corner, he walked directly into an ambush. He did not even have time to react before he was grabbed and a needle jabbed into his neck. Whatever they pumped into him was not anything Mikkel had been on before because, within a second, he had faded to black.

 

Oliver was called up the stairs and he hesitated. He felt like all eyes were on him, but it was not the same as it was when stepping out onto the ice for a game. It was nerve wracking, sickening, and terrifying. There were no shivers of anticipation, no excited butterflies in his stomach. All Oliver could feel was complete dread as he was sure any ability to speak, let alone in English, had left him entirely. They would know, he panicked, cold clammy sweat on his hands. They would know he had been with Molious and that he was not even supposed to be there. They would know he was from somewhere else, somewhere without war. They would know, but they were calling him up, and people were growing impatient.

 

Oliver swallowed hard, steadied himself as much as he could, and began up the stairs. There was no way to avoid the blood, so he stepped in it, tried not to let himself think about how two had died there just because they were black. He tried not to think about it because there was more pressing matters, but all he could do was think about it. Two had died there, and Oliver would be the third. There was no doubt in his scared mind of that.

 

" _What's your name, son?_ " The pastor asked, seemingly calm and, dare Oliver think it, happy that Oliver was there. There was far too much that went with that thought so Oliver ignored it, pushed it back.

 

" _Oliver,_ " He said, just a bit of a tremor in his voice.

 

" _Oliver, can you recite to me the Lord's Prayer?_ " Oliver opened his mouth to reply and then stopped. He could, but it was in Swedish. He could say it, but it was in the language that Mikkel told him explicitly not to speak. Oliver stared at the man and he felt utter horror wash over him. " _Do you not know it?_ " The pastor asked, eyes narrowing and voice tightening. He had maybe liked Oliver when he first came forward, but at his hesitation, his temper began to flair again. He would need to lie, Oliver knew. He would need to say something.

 

" _I do know it but… but not English._ " Not a lie, but not entirely true. He did not say he only knew it in Swedish and hoped, maybe, that the pastor would just suggest he recite it Swedish. Maybe he could con the man into giving him the answers.

 

" _Then in Latin,_ " The pastor replied, but it was not what Oliver wanted. He knew he had painted himself into a corner, but that was what he had to work with. He had to try to make it work, even though there was no way it would. Oliver shifted, licked his lips, and closed his eyes. His mind was full of prayer, that was for sure, but it was not a Lord's Prayer. It was a prayer for his life to be spared, a prayer that something would happen, anything would happen, to keep him safe. Slowly his lips moved, slowly he spoke anything that came to his mind. Of course, what he assumed he had said was "Please, God, I don't want to die!" on repeat, but when he opened his eyes, Oliver saw that the pastor looked impressed.

 

" _It has been a long time since I've heard the Lord's Prayer in Latin, especially with such fine pronunciation._ " Oliver was dumbfounded, floored, but not so much frightened. Sure, there was still a heavy dose of that in his system, he still shook slightly, but he was more preoccupied with the fact that he had, apparently, spoke Latin. He had not taken Opal, but Oliver wondered if what he had done had been the same thing Maria had done in her journal. He wondered if there was more weight to her idea that Oliver was brought there for a reason than he had given her credit for.

 

" _Welcome to the church of Plano, son,_ " The pastor said, and though the nickname rubbed Oliver the wrong way, made him want to recoil, and scream that the man was a monster, he knew enough to shut up and just accept that, by some miracle, he would make it inside. Oliver slowly extended his hand to shake the pastor's outstretched one, but as he reached, a gunshot echoed from not too far away. Oliver jumped a little and turned, looking in the direction that it had seemed to come from. Seconds later more shots came, solid pops that seemed to be retreating from where they stood. Something in Oliver told him it was Mikkel, but the man had told him to get inside, and running off then, trying to find Mikkel and maybe save him, would bury his chances of that forever. He doubted the pastor would forget such a transgression, and Oliver knew that he would never get the divine intervention a second time.

 

Gritting his teeth, Oliver turned back to face the man, but what came into his vision was not the grey-haired man, but the butt of a rifle. He had just enough time to brace for the inevitable hit before, for the second time, Oliver was knocked unconscious. Still, Oliver reasoned, it was better than being shot.


	11. Meet Your Master

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 11 Warnings: Language, Torture (Physical and Psychological), Violence, Gore, Heavy Drug Use, Minor Character Deaths, Mentions of: Blood Diseases
> 
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> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possessions?)  
> Song for Chapter 11 Meet Your Master: [Monster in the Parasol - Queens of the Stone Age](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnLwHOVXkWE)

Mikkel did not moan, did not stir, when he regained consciousness. At first it was slow, like coming out of a dream, but within minutes he was fully awake. Still he kept his eyes closed and his voice silent as he listened and attempted to ascertain exactly where he was. It was a skill he had learned a long time ago, though he could not pinpoint exactly where or when. He assumed it had to do with whatever training he had received while a soldier, and though many of his barriers had collapsed over the last few days, he had no intention of poking around in his own brain to try and find out more.

 

Laid on his back, Mikkel could feel the bindings keeping him in place. It was not a bed, not even what could be considered a gurney. It was more like a metal cadaver table than anything designed to keep a person restrained comfortably, warmed to his body temperature from prolonged contact. Mikkel could not feel much of his body, almost separated from his kinesthesia, but he assumed that all the parts were still there, though he dared not move them to find out seeing as though it seemed he was completely surrounded.

 

There were voices, muffled but seemingly close to Mikkel that moved around the space on all sides of him. As he listened he tried to gauge their distance, their tone, and the size of the room given their proximity to him. From their jargon they seemed to be doctors of some sort or another, though they did not hold small talk, all business from behind what sounded to be rebreathers. They were treating Mikkel like the biochemical weapon he was, which left him with the feeling that letting himself detox to the point of becoming a Berserker again would not have been a very smart idea. At best it would have been a dumb move, giving the Government more information on his condition, and downright suicidal on the bad end of the spectrum. If they could not control him, they would kill him, and Mikkel had a lot to accomplish in the short period of time that remained of his life.

 

" _How long do you just plan on laying there?_ " Came Sinclair's voice through a speaker and Mikkel internally winced. He should have known that pretending to still be under sedation would not have worked, especially with the precautions that they had obviously been taking. " _You could probably fool any of these idiots with your act, but the machines don't lie._ " Slowly Mikkel opened his eyes and got a look at the room. As Sinclair said, there were plenty of machines hooked to him. They did not beep or chime, but remained silent, although under the watchful eyes of the doctors. The displays of various vital signs were a steady rhythm that Mikkel knew corresponded to his heart and lungs. There was very little variation from his sleeping rhythms to his waking ones, but other machines seemed to have given him away.

 

One monitor, showing various colored lines, was the culprit on that front. They had been watching his brain waves from electrodes that were attached at various points on his forehead. Mikkel was able to school many things in his body, make him appear to be unconscious and incapacitated, but what he could not stop from ramping up was his brain, and it had given him away.

 

" _Probably wondering where you are, aren't you_?" Sinclair toned, causing Mikkel to frown. He did not actually care where he was, more concerned with the tubes, which stretched from the ditch of his elbow and out toward a machine. The blood inside was a deep red, deeper than Mikkel had ever seen his own blood, and he had seen it quite often. He wondered just how much Opal had been in his system to make the red almost black.

 

" _Boedker_ ," Sinclair said with just a hint of annoyance in his tone. Slowly Mikkel lolled his head to the other side, looking up toward a raised room where Sinclair stood behind thick glass. He was smarter this time, shielded before Mikkel could do anything. It was not ideal, but also not the worst thing in the world. Mikkel had enough people inside the room to deal with without adding the boisterous man to the situation.

 

" _Actually, was a lot more interested in why I'm here._ " Mikkel finally responded in an even tone. Sinclair frowned heavily and looked at Mikkel with hard, unwavering eyes. His hands had been shoved deep into his pockets, and though his stance showed nonchalance, his face showed weary aggravation. Mikkel smirked, knowing that he had caused the man to look like that. " _Would have thought you'd rather kill me on sight than risk bringing me in again, Sinclair. I've beaten you at every turn, after all._ "

 

Silence stretched on after that, Mikkel looking away again in the time in order to attempt to form an escape plan. He flexed his wrists, testing the strength of the ties. They were very serious about keeping him down, and with another moment of searching he found how serious. The bindings were not just on his wrists and ankles, but three over both legs, two over each arm, and three over his torso. Only his head was free to move around, limited only by his restrained body.

 

" _You're here because we're going to retrain you,_ " Sinclair said easily, and Mikkel's attention shot back to the older man, eyes hard and narrow. Retrain only meant one thing, and it was something Mikkel swore he would die before he did again. " _Thanks for showing us just how much you can take. The amount of Opal in your system… well, simply put, would kill almost anyone else. Thank you for that data, First Sergeant Boedker. It will be quite helpful._ " Confusion and alarm blossomed for a moment on Mikkel's face, not missed by Sinclair who sneered with some level of joy that was dark and menacing. Mikkel had only been a sergeant when he was in the military, some branch that had no official title but had been closely related to America's Marine sector. He had not been of a seriously high rank when in the military, so at the seemingly random promotion he had just received, he was lost for words. It was far from the pleasant and yet surprised way many would accept the sudden large increase of personal power, though.

 

" _Did you honestly think you had ever really left us, Boedker?_ " Sinclair said smoothly, one hand bracing him on the glass as he spoke down to the younger man. " _Sure, you slipped out almost unnoticed, but we knew where you were for most of the time. We have men stationed out there, hiding where our AWOL soldiers go, feeding us back information. Our web is large and wide, Boedker, and we get information from everyone with the right leverage._ " Mikkel's features turned down into a snarl, eyes narrow and glaring as he pieced it all together. It had not been luck that he had met up with Maria. It had not been good fortune that Margie had taken him in. It had all been a plan that Mikkel fell into unknowingly. He pulled on the restraints hard, table shaking slightly, but nothing came from it outside of Sinclair's smug smile growing wider. Finally he had hit Boedker where it hurt.

 

" _And Ekman-Larsson_?" Mikkel asked, needing that proven. He needed to know if his instincts that first night had been right, or if everything had been wrong since he had left the base. Sinclair's face fell slightly, not jovial in Mikkel's misery any longer, but thoughtfully skeptic.

 

" _He was… an unforeseeable contingency. Really, still not too sure what to make of him, but no matter, because soon we will get all we need from him as well as all we need from you._ " So, Mikkel thought, Oliver had been captured. The Church of Plano had been a Hail Mary play, one that apparently had not worked out. However, as Mikkel should have been concerned about his own safety, his own escape or immanent 'retraining', he could only think of Maria. Sinclair had made it seem like she had been part of his plan, but she had not been. No one was that good of an actor. No one would have pulled him from a firefight just because their boss needed him alive. No one would have taken numerous bullets for a false mission. She had been real, and Mikkel had to believe that her faith in Oliver had been real as well. Mikkel knew, with no need to convince himself, that his life and his mission held not even a single candle to what Oliver's life held. He would need to change his focus from revenge to protection, and though his body wanted nothing else than to pull free of the bonds and rip everyone in the room to pieces, he knew it would only get him killed and would do nothing to help Oliver.

 

" _Where is he?_ " Mikkel asked, voice tight.

 

" _You'll see him soon enough,_ " Sinclair told him, sneering still. He had thought he had won, but Mikkel was not so ready to call it over. " _As we're speaking he's getting some reeducation of his own. Soon we'll know everything and then you two, under my command, will become the best soldiers America has ever made. Two walking weapons, ready to kill anyone I tell you to. Poetry, really._ " Mikkel closed his eyes and laid his head back. He did not know how to feel, tangled up needs and wants that were indistinguishable. The last thing he expected to do, however, was laugh.

 

It was not a loud laugh, not one that shook his body and echoed through the room. Instead it was a slow one, one that burbled to his lips like a low roll of thunder and dissipated almost immediately. Still it drew the attention of everyone, even the doctors hesitated with uncertainty. It was Sinclair's demanding that made Mikkel speak; words rolling off his tongue that he did not think about; ones that came out as sentences instead of nonsense. They were words that carried a weight that Mikkel had not known any words could.

 

" _He can not be your weapon, Sinclair, because he's already the weapon of the Presence, and you know they won’t let us take another inch._ " The room remained tense, eyes glancing between the two men that glared at each other through the glass. Sinclair's hand balled into a fist and then relaxed flat again, though the tension remained.

 

" _We read the book too, Boedker. We know much, and as soon as our translators finish, we will know it all._ "

 

" _You'd already know it all if you would listen. He's going to either save us or get us killed. You're playing with fire, Sinclair, and this time the burn is going to fucking kill you._ "

 

" _He is, apparently, a soldier of the Presence, according to your high little whore, but what do you think they are going to do if he's under my control, Boedker? Kill me? No, not when I'm the only one with his cure._ " Malcolm Sinclair paused, a smile slowly slipping onto his face. He had convinced himself he would survive through whatever the Presence had planned, whatever purge they would create. Mikkel knew he, himself, would not survive, and he also had his doubts that Oliver would be spared. The way the Presence had spoken to him, with harsh disdain, Mikkel believed that they would eradicate humanity without discrimination. Everyone would die including Sinclair and Oliver. They could not be bargained with.

 

" _Actually, Sinclair, I think they're going to kill us all: You, me, the whole fucking lot. Do you really think Oliver will have some safety zone around him?_ "

 

" _I'm thinking it won’t matter too much when you and he are released out there as Berserkers and you remove the rest of humanity from the globe. Just you two, me, and some select other few. We'll give those things what they want, a stop to the over population rape of this world, and I will be a king for the few left. I will be their master and you two will be my army._ " Another laugh, this time louder, came from Mikkel's mouth. Sinclair's eyes narrowed more, tiny slits, as he looked down onto Mikkel's immobile form. They both expected him to say something like how Mikkel would never work for him, how Mikkel would find a way to kill himself before ever becoming a soldier again. What came out of Mikkel's mouth, though, shocked both of them.

 

" _Oliver can not be a Berserker, you fool!_ " As the words left his mouth, Mikkel knew what he was talking about, and it frightened him down to his soul. He was not the one speaking; he was not the one supplying information to his own brain. Someone else was-- someone else, or something else. " _He touched my blood and did not change._ " It had not dawned on Mikkel before, but as the information came rushing to him, he knew it was the truth. The bag, he realized suddenly. That fucking bag that held the Opal had been covered in blood, but it was black and neither of them had seen it. Mikkel had blood on his hands, blood on his back, blood seeping out of every pore and of course it had gotten on the bag. Oliver had touched it, held it, slept on it. There was no way he could not have been exposed, and yet hours had passed and Oliver had not crumbled under the weight of miserable agony. The Berserkers were only in their world, some byproduct of medical tinkering, so of course Oliver would have been immune. Mikkel had probably not been safe enough to venture back to the streets, but Oliver had tested his blood and had not changed. Mikkel felt a small bit of kinship as he mulled it over, really thought about it. He could not hurt Oliver even if he tried.

 

" _Well, what does it matter?_ " Sinclair left that open ended, pacing slightly in his glass box. There would be no trapping him again, Mikkel knew. Even if he managed to get out of the bonds, even if he managed to get out of that room, Sinclair was still too far removed from him. He would be out of there at the first sign of trouble. He was just an annoyance, not a mark at that moment. He would get his dues, so Mikkel needed to concentrate on Oliver instead. " _With your blood, we'll figure out how you control them. We'll keep infecting that boy with more and more strains until one holds. We'll figure out how we made you, and then we'll make him. There's no way out of this one, Boedker, so why do you still fight it?_ "

 

" _Because you're all I've ever wanted, Sinclair_ ," Mikkel growled, all Mikkel that time. There seemed to be no traces of the Presence in his mind, no images, no thoughts that were not his own. Mikkel lived in the present, lived in the very moment where he knew what needed to be done. Without the memories flooding through him, without the strange words coming from his mouth, Mikkel knew full well that he was alone once again. It was to his benefit, made him more lethal and determined. If he did not let the past weigh him down he would be far better at making decisions and acting upon them. If the Presence would just stay out of his mind, Mikkel could function like the well-oiled machine he always had.

 

" _You will have me then, Boedker, but not in the way you so desperately want right now. When we're done, when you, again, are the soldier you were born to be, you will want me another way. You will want me to give you commands; you will want me to point out your target. You will want to turn everyone to Berserkers to give me my army, and then you will control them because I want you to._ " Mikkel bit hard against his lip, gathering blood in his mouth and spit. He spit at Sinclair but got nowhere near the glass as the saliva and blood mixture fell harmlessly to the floor. Still, regardless of Mikkel’s now benign disease, some of the doctors stumbled back to get out from under the arch, afraid of the power Mikkel's blood once held. They, apparently, had heard about what had happened to the last group of scientists locked in the same room as him.

 

" _No use fighting, Boedker!_ " Malcolm Sinclair said with a laugh. " _You went ahead and took away the only weapon you had when you dosed up. At least some of the addictions we gave to you soldiers stick around."_ As Sinclair's words drew to a close, a needle was jammed into Mikkel's neck, hard and fast. For a second Mikkel cried out, but it dipped into a growl as he continued to glare up at the man. Malcolm Sinclair knocked once on the glass with his knuckle, a strange look of pride on his face. Mikkel was unsure if it was for hurting him, or for something he did not know about yet. It seemed unlikely that they would push more Opal into his system when he already had enough to turn his blood almost black, so his money went onto the something else.

 

" _What are you shooting me up with, Sinclair?_ " Mikkel growled, feeling the effect of whatever was in his system almost immediately. His head swam, lightheaded even though lying down. The room seemed to shift like after a heavy night of drinking, but his stomach did not turn with it. He could not remember the last time he had eaten, and though not generally a good thing, it probably saved Mikkel from a more unpleasant reaction to the drug.

 

" _Prozira. We just got a shipment in from America and were trying to find the right test subject to use it on._ " Mikkel clenched his eyes shut and wished Malcolm would shut up. His tone, the condescending nature of it, did nothing to help the way the new drug burned through his veins. It was completely unlike the Opal it seemed, starting with being light. There was no weight with it, did not feel sluggish and thick as it pushed through his veins. The Prozira seemed to set every vein on fire, making his heart ignite as it reached it. He wanted to reach up, to put pressure on the organ and hope to god that the pain went away. It felt like a heart attack, but Sinclair would never let him die. Even if his heart seized and stopped, they would restart it and try again. Mikkel wished it would just kill him, good and dead, but he knew the sweet release would never happen.

 

Fists balled and body pulling hard against the restraints, Mikkel groaned in pain. He thrashed in excruciating torment, but his mind did not seem to want to focus on the problem at hand. Instead it fluttered with thought because something peeked its curiosity. He had heard of Prozira before, but he could not remember where. He thought, tried to remember even though his vision swam and his head spun. He had heard of it before, but where?

 

When the knowledge came over Mikkel, it was like a wave. As if the drug had not messed with his head enough, whatever dawning realization he had sent him head over heels, reeling in memories. Behind his eyes images flashed, like a video in fast-forward. There was no sound to go with the replaying of his pervious actions, but he knew what they were regardless. It had been after his attack on the ballpark, just a few days prior by that point, but so much had happened since then that it had fallen to the way side. He had purchased Opal, a whole load of it, and with it he had purchased some pills. The dealer had told him they were new, brand new, and Mikkel had not been able to turn that away. He had wanted to find out what they were when he had returned to Molious, but then Molious had been destroyed and Mikkel had devolved to a Berserker. There had been a lot of things that took precedence over that memory, so to get it then, when he had needed it the most, definitely came from an outside source. Mikkel had been pretty sure that whatever divine insight he had gotten from the Presence had been fleeting and momentary. He thought it only had to do with Oliver, but they seemed to still be there, still monitoring and watching over him.

 

With the images zipping through Mikkel's mind, he remembered what the dealer had told him. She had looked excited about the little bottle of pills, insistent that it was the new hot thing. She said it calmed a person down, slowed them down. It took several seconds with that thought to figure out why the memories were going so fast. They were actually being replayed by the Presence at a normal speed, but his brain could not keep up. The reeling, the excruciating pain, was his body being leveled out. The Opal made him faster, more alert, and the Prozira slowed him, calmed him. Mikkel had not drunk the water in a long time, and the Parepin had some of the same effects. Parepin calmed a person, made them complacent. The Prozira was a stronger, more complete version of it. Mikkel's long since detoxed body would never be able to fight it off.

 

" _I was sure you'd figure it out, Boedker. Almost positive that you'd see what was going on: We've been using you for years, for information, for missions. Unfortunately you're as dim as you are useful, so we have to drag you back, kicking and screaming, to make you useful again._ " Sinclair paused, eyes hard as they watched the Prozira take over Mikkel. He had never used it himself, not one to get himself dirty with the ugly stuff they gave to the civilian population. " _There's nothing left out there for your kind. We've won, we've taken it all over, and your mission is over. Now we have to reassign you, and to do that we need to make you see the truth._ " He paused again. There was no doubt that Mikkel heard him, but he would need time to process it. He would need hours to understand what words were said to him, and even longer to mentally work through what they meant. Sinclair did not have time, had other things that demanded his attention. Oliver Ekman-Larsson was currently undergoing his own reeducation far away from where Mikkel was held. It would take an hour to get out to the base to monitor the situation there. Mikkel was hardened, and the scientists were under strict orders to not let Mikkel loose or to die. They would do what was needed to see that he became a functioning soldier once more. Ekman-Larsson, however, was a different case entirely.

 

" _We've got big plans for you, Boedker. Remember that._ " Sinclair said with an air of humor, watching for just one more minute as the Prozira took over the younger man's body. Sinclair hoped that it hurt as much as the studies said it would. He hoped that Mikkel felt unimaginable pain for his transgressions. Turning, Sinclair exited the observation room, moving authoritatively through the halls. He felt excited, for the first time in a long time, for the future.

 

Everything in Mikkel's mind was shooting through at high speed. The way the scientists and doctors moved was almost inhuman, zipping around the room at paces Mikkel could not follow with his eyes. He pulled lethargically at the bindings, weak and uncoordinated. They had finally done it, finally caught him in their trap. He would never be able to get from under the Prozira, never be able to function fast enough to defend himself even if he managed to get free. His heart thundered in his chest, mixing the drug through his system. It still burned, but it became common, and his brain tried desperately to keep up with everything else and did not even bother to relay to him that he felt like death. There seemed to be no point in being stuck on that very obvious fact when millions of stimuli were sluggishly clogging his mental capacity as it was, fighting for attention.

 

It could have been hours, could have been days that Mikkel lay there, wishing his heart would just give up the fight. There was no way he would get out, no possibility of surviving the ordeal without bending to the whims of the Government, and he never would chose that over death. There was no choice, though.

 

It seemed like every minute to Mikkel's slowed brain, the doctors would inject him more. Sometimes it would be Opal, the familiar black liquid pushing heavily into him. He would feel better for a few seconds, but then there would be another dose of the Prozira, submerging him once more into a sea of pain and lethargic groaning. He needed to get out of there, but the bindings held him in place. Fighting had long since been abandoned for simple preservation. He wanted them to stop with the alternating needles, trying to let them think he was dosed up enough so they would move onto something else, whatever was next in their plan.

 

It was impossible to gauge time, impossible to tell what day it was or how long he lay on the cadaver table, but Mikkel was positive it was too late to save Oliver. The Government was not new to making soldiers, did not need a manual on how to drug a civilian into total submission anymore. They were old pros at it and that meant that Mikkel's mission had failed. Even if he could have gotten out of that room, he never would make it to Oliver before they had destroyed him. It was over, he had lost, and he wanted to convince his heart to give up the fight too. He wanted it to stop beating and give him the sweet release of death. It would not, however. Slowly Mikkel closed his eyes and accepted his fate.

 

When Mikkel opened his eyes again he staggered with shock. Around him lay the scientists and doctors that had occupied the room, puddles of blood around them like crimson halos. Mikkel's mind still functioned at a slower pace as he turned labouredly and looked around. Aside from the scientists and doctors were soldiers, about twenty of them, all covered in wounds like the others. They were cut up with precision, stab wounds and slashes that hit arteries when possible. Nothing moved save from Mikkel and he was grateful for that. It was not because he would have to attempt to defend himself, but because the otherwise stillness of the room was a relief to him. He did not have to try and keep up with anything anymore.

 

Taking a step back, Mikkel bumped against the table he had previously lay on. He had no idea how he had gotten free, but with all the bindings minus one slashed open, he had a fairly good idea. Somehow he had gotten his left hand free and armed himself. He cut the remaining bindings and then set to work on the occupants of the room. He had been under heavy guard, more than likely, so at the first sign of trouble soldiers had rushed the room. Mikkel had somehow killed them all, approximately thirty people total, and had not a scratch on him. Shakily his hand dropped the scalpel it had been holding, the metal clinking loudly on the floor. He lifted his hand slowly, seeing it covered in blood. He had definitely killed them all, but his horror had not been because of that. Killing was something Mikkel knew, something he did well. What scared him, what made him shake, was the fact that there could be absolutely no way for him to have done it.

 

"How the fuck…" He started, but before he got the words out, the memories flooded over him once more. He had all but broken his hand when he pulled it from the bindings, launching quickly to grab the scalpel that someone had left far too close. He cut the ties up his arm with precision and swiftness that his brain could still not comprehend. Before he freed any more of his body, the scientists and doctors had swarmed him, but some how they could not stop him. Mikkel had driven the scalpel into the first one's neck and pulled him close. As others descended on him he shoved the dying one back. He knocked a few of them over, bleeding everywhere as he attempted desperately to cover the wound. More came upon Mikkel, grabbing him, holding him down, and the soldiers had entered by that point. They opened fire without regard for the lives of the scientists and doctors, littering their bodies with bullets that never made it to Mikkel's body. They had inadvertently saved him and Mikkel used those precious seconds to free himself the rest of the way. He slipped off of the table, crouching low to count the boots of the soldiers. After that things got stranger.

 

Mikkel ran right at the remaining occupants of the room, seemingly dodging their gunfire. He could never dodge bullets, Mikkel knew, and definitely would not have had a fighting chance with the Prozira in his system. Yet Mikkel remembered it clearly, the way he ducked and weaved, not once even being clipped by a bullet. He slashed the soldiers apart, severing tendons first in order to stop their onslaught before returning to finish them off. Then he turned his attention back to the scientists and doctors before, eventually, being the last man standing. It made no sense to Mikkel as the memories caught up to his current moments. There was no way he could have killed them all, not even at peak shape, but he had. He remembered doing it, but even that seemed wrong. Suddenly he doubled over and vomited, bile splashing on the ground and mixing with the puddles of blood that were thick and seemed to cover most of the floor. The blood was old, but not too old, already drying slightly around the edges.

 

Mikkel slowly straightened up, wiping his mouth on his arm as he did so. Vomiting would not clean the drug from his system, but it felt like a good first step. Next, he knew, he would need to get out of there and try to find Oliver. There was no guarantee that Oliver would still even be alive, but something told him that he was. Something told him that there was still time, even though Mikkel had no clue how long he had been out.

 

"Alright, I get how this is playing out," He spoke quietly to the eerily still room, pushing himself away from the table to hesitantly move across and to the door. "I'm going to need some stuff: some more Opal to straighten this shit out, and going to have to take these guns. You get me that, and then I'll do whatever divine mission you've got for me." He felt idiotic speaking to the air, never really the religious type. It was not a prayer, though, not really. It was more like a deal, a binding contract. If Mikkel got what he needed, he would do what he knew the Presence wanted of him. If not, well then he would get the hell out of dodge and plot his revenge from the safety of somewhere pretty far from Stockholm.

 

No response was ever given to Mikkel, not in words or images and he thought that it might have been for the best. His mind still felt impossibly slow, but the Presence seemed to have saved his ass more than once, and he hoped that would be a continuing occurrence if he ran into trouble. Regardless he armed himself with a gun from a soldier, strapping on a few combat knives and side arms. He looted what he could off the corpses including ammo and keys, and packed up the minimal supply of Opal the room held. He would need more, there was no doubt about that, and that was where the Presence would come in. It would have to lead him to where ever Oliver was being held anyway, so he hoped there would be an ample supply of the drug along the way. Then, and only then, Mikkel thought, would he go and find the kid.


	12. The Greater Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 12 Warnings: Hints of: Drug Use**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possession)  
> Song for Chapter 12 The Greater Good: [Dream v. Scream - Gyroscope](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQkhvl3MnQY)

There was never actually consciousness for Oliver. He had gone from the blackness of solid unconsciousness, the butt of an assault riffle knocking him out cold, to an inky submergence under something else. If he had ever woken up, ever actually came around to awareness, he could not remember it. Instead he grasped at nothing, attempting in futile to pull himself back toward light.

 

He was sure his body hurt, though he could not actually feel it. Any sense of self seemed fractured, disjointed. Oliver knew who he was, in a sense anyway. He remembered his name, but past there things grew fuzzy. He thought he could remember waking up in a strange place, but then, as soon as that thought surfaced, he thought that he had always been there. When that thought came to mind, he thought that it did not really mattered anyway. There was no need to worry about such things something coaxed him. That something that spoke slowly, quietly, to him, Oliver realized labouredly, was the blackness itself. There was no point worrying about things like identity, or worrying about where one was and where one was supposed to be. There was no point in worrying at all, really, because that was all over. He was assimilated, part of the whole, and that was all he would ever need ever again.

 

It was easy, really, to accept the blackness' proposal. He would not have to worry ever again and that seemed like a good way to be. He had no need to fight any more against anything, and that would be a relief. Fighting, though, was a phrase that stuck in Oliver's mind for a while. He had been fighting, had he not? He had been fighting over something, or for something, but he could not remember what that was. He could not remember much of anything at all because it was so easy not to, and the blackness did not want him to. It did not matter, not really, about what happened before. All that mattered was what would happen from there on out. It was comforting and not at all frightening.

 

Words occasionally came through the thick black, sounds that were foreign and distant. They were words that slipped into him almost subliminally, and Oliver did not mind that at all. They told him to " _Breathe_ _slowly_ ", to " _Relax and just breathe,_ " and that sounded like a wonderful thing to remind him to do. He felt like breathing in the blackness was the greatest idea in the universe and so he did, deep and methodically. Each time he felt better, or at least he assumed he felt better. Oliver's body was still very far off, more of a concept than anything concrete. He wondered if he even actually had a body, if he had just imagined ever having one. However, there was no point in thinking that way because the blackness had become his body and it was far more comfortable than any real body would have been. Real bodies got hurt, got weak, got old. The blackness never had any of those limitations, and that seemed like a good way to be. That seemed like the best thing ever, actually, and if Oliver had a body he would smile over that thought.

 

" _You will be everything we need_ ," A voice came again, and Oliver thought it sounded familiar, though faint and distant through the blackness. It seemed to be a voice that should instill emotion in Oliver, more than likely a bad one, but the blackness did not let him dwell on it for long. It reminded him how wanted he was, how good he was, and the elation Oliver felt over that was far better than being mad over something that he could not actually place. So Oliver did not dwell on it, did not mull the words over and concentrate on how they were said or what they actually meant when combined with tone and context. He took them as something to be excited over and stuck with that: peace through the blackness. He was someone that someone needed, and it was good to be needed.

 

It did not matter how long Oliver was in the blackness, how often he lost track of how he felt or how he perceived. Nothing actually mattered as he was kept warm and safe inside the blackness, but eventually something began to ruin it.

 

Oliver did not notice right away, or at least he had not thought he had, when the blackness seemed to grow a bit lighter. There was no pinprick of light, no bright beam in the otherwise thick blackness, but there was a slight change in shade. Slowly the blackness became greyer, more hostile the blackness informed him. It was not supposed to brighten, it was not supposed to be anything but the thick pitch black, and with the warning came Oliver's nervousness. The blackness wanted him to be aware, be alert, and be scared, and so Oliver was. There was supposed to be no light; no violent, deceitful light in his safe darkness, but it was there, attempting to get at Oliver. He would have fought, would have recoiled from it and turned back to where there was only safety, but he had no body. He had no body and the grey wanted him to know that that was not okay.

 

Doubt came to Oliver like a tidal wave, crashing over him violently and without mercy. He should have a body; he should have a corporeal form that felt things like pain, weariness, and energy. He should have something for his consciousness to live in, something that felt the sun on its skin, but he did not. Or, maybe he did, but it was too far away. Maybe, the grey prompted, it was on the other side of the blackness.

 

Doubt was not comfortable. Doubt came with a burden that Oliver did not want and he tried, he tried very hard, to get back to the blackness, but it was no longer there. The grey had surrounded him, pulled him under, and though Oliver fought, there would be no escape.

 

The grey knew what the black had been telling him, knew the words that were slipping through, and it filled in the rest. The black had omitted things, had hidden things, and the grey, the bit of light, wanted Oliver to know what those things were. The words it let through held more burdens, but they were not the kind that Oliver wished to ignore. They were words such as " _Coercion” and_ " _Submission_ ", words that held weight. The blackness surged back for just a second, just a small window of time that held no real meaning to Oliver. It buried the words again, but the grey brought them back, and Oliver understood. The blackness had been hiding things, the evil that came with the peace, but the grey showed him it all at once. Yes, he could very well be contented with the blackness, submitted and assimilated, but he was not one to do that. Oliver was one to fight for what was right, not just roll over and be content with false freedom. Oliver stopped breathing.

 

Slowly the blackness parted more, grey light forcing its way in to fill the gaps. It wanted him to know something, Oliver sensed. It wanted him to know the truth that even the blackness did not know. It would be their secret, the kind that could never be shared with anyone.

 

Oliver's eyes opened, or, at least, he thought they had. He was still unsure of the concept of a body, was still unsure if he had one or not, but it seemed like something he would do if he had had one. He would open his eyes and look around. Slowly images revealed themselves to him, pictures that took shape, though not perfectly. There were colors, but they were muted by the grey. It was not the grey's fault, though, he was told. It could only do so much, could only let Oliver see in a certain way, and it would not be crisp and clear. It told him it was like looking through fog, but Oliver could not place what fog was, or if he had ever looked through it. It was not important, the grey told him. What was important was what he saw, regardless of how imperfect it was.

 

Imperfect, Oliver thought, was a strange word to use, because regardless of the low visibility quality, the image instilled a sense of perfection on him. It was not a merry scene, what he watched, but it still seemed perfect.

 

There was a woman and three men in the room, all close to Oliver and yet fluttering behind the fog the grey had told him about. Oliver knew they were familiar, people that warmed him to see, but for a while he could not place who they were. It was something that the blackness did not want him to remember and so he did not, until the grey banished the blackness fully.

 

The woman, Oliver realized, was his mother. The older man, Oliver realized, was his father. The youngest man, Oliver realized, was his brother. And the man that was neither old nor young was…

 

Mikkel, Oliver thought, pausing for a moment on him. That was Mikkel, someone that he knew. It was someone that he did know, but there was something wrong with him. Something that was not quite right.

 

No, the grey told him. It was the Mikkel where everything was right. It was the Mikkel who would wear his hats, wear his glasses, cater to Oliver's whims and laugh with him every chance he got. It was the Mikkel that was one of his best friends in the whole world, and yet right then, as Oliver saw him, he looked sad.

 

Mikkel does not ever look sad Oliver tried to reason. Mikkel never looked sad before, at least. However Oliver was highly unsure of which Mikkel he meant. He had not even remembered there were two Mikkels until he had thought about it, but neither of them, he remembered, ever looked sad.

 

He looks sad because of you, the grey told him, and Oliver did not understand. There were two Mikkels, one that fought, and one that laughed. There was one that would kill for what he believed in, and there was one that would die for what he believed in. Neither of them ever looked sad, especially because of him.

 

The fighting Mikkel would look annoyed; would look mad; would look murderous because of Oliver. The other Mikkel (the real Mikkel, his mind demanded) would look happy, would smile widely and say something funny because of Oliver. Neither of them would ever look sad because of him, and yet this Mikkel did, and Oliver did not understand.

 

He looks sad because you have left him, the grey supplied, and Oliver did not understand. He had never left, never on purpose anyway. He had always been in contact with Mikkel when he left, or Mikkel had left him, depending on which Mikkel it was that he saw through eyes he was pretty sure he still did not have. There was no reason to look sad when Mikkel could just call him or, otherwise, come and rescue him.

 

Rescue, Oliver thought, was an awfully strange choice of word. He did not need to be rescued, he reasoned. He was fine where he was, safe where he was. He had the black and the grey and had no ability to be hurt, but something did hurt. Oliver had no idea what it was for a long time as he watched the four people the grey showed him.

 

Slowly came words, but it was not words that were spoken by the grey or by the black. They were words from outside of them, words that Oliver thought he could hear if he had had ears. They were words that came from his mother, his father, his brother, and his Mikkel.

 

They were whispers, barely able to be heard, but they were told to him by the grey that had wanted to see four of the most important people in his life sad. He did not trust the grey, did not even like the grey, but he listened regardless. He listened and slowly understood what hurt.

 

Words such as car, drunk, and hit came to him, words with tones that betrayed sadness more than any facial features could express. Oliver could not understand what information was being relayed between the four, but it had them all worked up. It had them all sad, and what hurt was Oliver's heart.

 

It ached, more than a heart had any right to, to see them sad. He did not even let himself think for a second that he had no body because it hurt so terribly to watch his loved ones grieve. He wanted to use that body, wanted to reach out and touch them, tell them that he was there, that he would be okay. He wanted to tell his mother, who wanted so terribly to cry, that one day, hopefully one day soon, he would wake up and hug her tight. He wanted to tell his brother that he could not get rid of him that easily. He wanted to tell his father that they would hang out again soon. However, more than anything, he wanted to tell Mikkel that they would laugh together again. He wanted to tell Mikkel that he would not have to find someone else to sit next to on bus rides and flights because he would be back with him soon. He wanted to tell them all that they should not be sad and he would be back as soon as he finished what he had to do, but though he knew he had a body, it would not respond to his commands.

 

I want them to know, Oliver informed the grey, and the grey understood, but it was not to be. Oliver had things to do, things to see, before he could tell them. He had much to accomplish and not much time to do it, and though Oliver had no idea what it was he was supposed to do, he accepted the grey's charge. The grey had not deceived him, had not held him under and only told him what he wanted to hear. The grey was forthright and honest, and Oliver knew that though the black promised him safety and security, peace and no more pain, the grey had promised him a way back to his loved ones. Oliver would take all of the pain in the universe upon himself just to see them smile again, and he would. The grey told him he would with just a little more time.

 

Now, the grey told him, it was time to wake up. It was time to fight.


	13. The Great Destroyer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 13 Warnings: Character Deaths, Drug Use, Violence, Gore, Language, Mentions of: Blood Diseases**
> 
>  
> 
> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possession)  
> Song for Chapter 13 The Great Destroyer: [Give - Powderfinger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1_jnOtd2cE)

Oliver's labored breathing filled the silence between questions. He was unsure how he kept his eyes open, and if it were not for the chair he had been put in, he would have been face down on the floor. He felt sick from all the water, stomach churning and preparing him to vomit, except for the fact that he had no energy to do so. Instead he drooled, eyes wide open but unseeing as he stared at the man across the table from him. The man that asked questions and gave a wide berth in conversation just incase something were to get through to Oliver and elicit a response.

 

" _Where have you been for 5 years?_ " He asked for the twentieth time that day, getting the same response of breaths and a blank stare. Oliver was an honest to god mess, the drugs in his system raging wars against his normal functions that made Vietnam look like a walk in the park. The Opal was probably the only thing that kept him in any state of consciousness, and even that front was debatable.

 

" _Are you a traitor?_ " The man asked after the allotted two minutes of silence. Oliver again did not move, but something was going on with him under the surface. It was something familiar, something that tugged at him, urged him. It was not instantaneous when it cut through whatever was clouding every input port Oliver had, but it eventually did with a slow crescendo. It was a voice that spoke steadily to him, a tone that was not forcing nor coddling. It was a voice that told him what needed to be done and told him that everything would be okay.

 

It took almost twenty minutes after Oliver first realized it was there for him to place it as Mikkel's voice. It was a familiar voice telling him things that were far less familiar coming from his tone.

 

" _What can you tell us about the operations of Molious?_ " The voice did not let Oliver even entertain the notion of answering that question. Actually, the voice of Mikkel did not even acknowledge that the man had spoken at all. It just continued to talk, short sentences that grew slightly more complex as it latched onto Oliver's slowly returning consciousness.

 

" _What is your name?_ "

 

"Say your name. Try to speak as clearly as you can."

 

Oliver could not feel his mouth forming the words, but they came out and he heard them. He heard himself speak and though it surprised him, nothing showed externally on his features. He remained as lax as he had been for hours. Or was it days? As he spoke, more excess water pushed passed his lips, dripping down his chin. He could not feel it either, but knew it was there. He wanted to remember how to vomit. The man straightened when Oliver spoke, staring at him for several seconds. He had obviously been surprised by Oliver’s sudden words, not predicting them in the least.

 

" _Were you with the terrorist cell Molious?_ " The man asked after a moment in which he had picked up his pen and wrote down Oliver's response.

 

"Yes _,_ " Oliver supplied, ridged and unnatural, almost as if reading from a script. He was prompted to answer in the affirmative by the voice of Mikkel in his head, but nothing more. He honestly was not even sure if he could do anything else such as add tone and timber.

 

"Nod your head. They're watching you. Try to make it look good." Oliver did as instructed, definitely questioning his own sanity at that moment. The motion came much jerkier, stiffer, than a normal head nod would be. He could not feel it, but it was very off. He knew nothing about his blank stare, his salivating mouth, and how his slight movements looked anything but close to normal, but it also did not seem very important to him. There was another pause from the man across the table where he wrote, before he continued with the questions.

 

" _Are there any extensions of Molious? Other cells that require our attention?_ " Nothing entered Oliver's head at that question, so he just remained sitting and staring, drooling and lost. Bile and water mixed at the base of his throat, but came no higher, though he locked up slightly in preparation for it to do so. His body, essentially, was on autopilot, controlled by the drugs. The minutes of silence stretched again before the man prompted once more with the same question.

 

Oliver had begun to retain parts of memories, was able to think back and remember the man writing (though he was unable to recall what the man had been writing, or even what the last thing he had said was), yet he still could not manage to deduce if he was conscious or not. Mikkel's voice had sunk back into silence. Oliver was not sure if he could do anything until he was instructed to by that voice, and yet he did not try.

 

Minutes seemed never ending as the man asked several different questions. He had begun to wonder if the responses elicited from the boy had been flukes, strange neuron firings that just happened to be connected enough to appear to be answers and not just involuntary hiccups of information. Oliver was in rough shape, and he felt the haze of the drugs begin to edge back into his system when Mikkel's voice returned, low and, this time, soothing.

 

"I need you to concentrate, Oliver," It told him, almost as if he could feel the blurred edges in Oliver's vision returning. Oliver guessed it could if the voice really was in his own head. "I need you to fight it, but not let them see that you are. You need to fool them, not let them put any more drugs in you."

 

"Okay," Oliver replied, more spit than words, and the man across the table looked up at him briefly, before back down to write what Oliver had uttered. Even though it was entirely out of context from what the man had asked, he was under strict orders to document everything.

 

Oliver worked hard after that to attempt to concentrate. He tried to focus on the man across from him, on the wall, on anything he could. He gave a brief attempt at reading the man's paper upside-down, but realized quickly that the drugs turned it into a sort of thin-lined Rorschach test. Mikkel's voice wanted him to keep away from that stuff, so Oliver tried his hardest. Still he could not vomit, but with the slow return of his consciousness came the vague touches of sensation. He could almost feel the wetness on his chin from where the excess water was forcing its way out of his mouth; touches of sensation in the aches and pains that came with sitting in a chair far too long and being beaten up at basically every turn. He tried to decide how long he had been in that room, but nothing solid before the last five minutes or so came to the surface, and still, certain things continued to slip passed his consciousness. He felt like he had studied the man before, but when he looked back it was like someone else was sitting there. He fought to remember more details about him, clearly ignoring the questions when the Mikkel in his head did not supply an answer.

 

Oliver was sure hours had passed since he began retain a notion of time, and though he had managed to remember the man's uniform, the way he leaned slightly to his left when he reached for something on the table, and how occasionally he glanced at something behind Oliver, he still felt like he was a long way from any real functionality. He blinked slowly and his eyes ached. Though most of his body hurt, his eyes held a pain that took precedence and he concentrated on that. He tried to only blink when the man looked down, but the man's need to consult the paper in front of him had become less frequent, and Oliver's need to wet his eyes more desperate.

 

"I want to vomit," Oliver thought, but received no response from the Mikkel in his head. He wanted to sigh, to shift, and to get up. He wanted to be home-- in Arizona or in Sweden, he did not actually care-- but he said none of those things out loud since the Mikkel in his head told him not to let them know he was functioning, even at a basic level. The man seemed to have come to some conclusion that the responses Oliver had given were flukes and appeared highly disinterested and very weary over sitting in the room with the drooling Oliver much longer.

 

" _What is your name?_ " He asked again, almost absently.

 

"Oliver," Oliver muttered out again, gaining another surprised look from the man. Oliver forced his eyes to stare straight, though they ached and watered with the need to close. Mikkel told him to answer and he did, but his mind really was not with it. It was occupied with sobering up.

 

"Keep it up, Oliver." The Mikkel Oliver had met in this world never sound as caring as his Mikkel did, but that phrase was close. Oliver blinked slowly, and when he opened his eyes, the man was watching him. Oliver panicked, and realized he had messed up severely when he met the man's gaze and stared back. He no longer felt the pain in his eyes while he locked up in fear. They knew he was waking up and the voice of Mikkel in his head had made it pretty clear that that would not be a good thing.

 

The man was on his feet in a moment and Oliver tried to do the same, tried to stand, to run, but he was not well enough for those sorts of functions yet. He managed to kick his feet in an attempt to either push his chair back or have them support his weight, but all he managed to do was slide his soles across the floor and lurch hard against the back of the chair. It seemed like magic how fast the man had a syringe of Opal in his hand, and it was not a far distance between him and the practically incapacitated Oliver.

 

"No, please!" Oliver begged in Swedish, in hopeless gasps, but the man neither understood nor cared about Oliver’s desperate begging. Oliver slammed his eyes shut, scared of the sedation he knew would come-- of the more water and Opal they would pump into his system. His muscles finally came back to life in the minor capacity of a scared twitch when a gunshot echoed deafeningly through the room. Oliver's eyes flew back open again to see that the man had disappeared and left only a large blood splatter (dripping wetly toward the floor) and a single bullet hole in his place. They both marred the perfectly white wall.

 

"Should have warned you about blinking," Mikkel muttered from somewhere behind him and Oliver turned quickly, causing his head to reel and his sight to fade to blackness and starbursts of light for a minute. He hurt more than he could ever remember, including his ears that rang and popped with an attempt to equalize pressure.

 

Mikkel moved quickly and he seemed like a motion blur to Oliver's stunned mind and senses. He bolted the door before he walked around the room and tore out every camera that protruded from the wall. Finally he grabbed the voice recorder from the table and crushed it under his heel. He stepped over what Oliver eventually realized was the man that had been asking him questions, head blown open and brain largely displaced from his skull. Oliver still could not find his voice so he stared at Mikkel in shock instead of asking him obvious questions. He hoped it was not a trick by the Government because he was sure he was about to cry with relief. Instead he vomited, managing to get most of it onto the floor. Mikkel just watched in silence until Oliver dragged in a shaking breath. He then laid his gun on the table and dragged the corpse to the corner of the room, depositing it unceremoniously before returning to the table. He sat quickly down in the chair that the now dead man had been in, and stared long and hard until Oliver managed to calm enough to meet his eyes.

 

"How are you feeling now?" He asked and Oliver grinned crookedly, managing through reflex alone to bring his hand up and wipe away the vomit and drool that clung to his chin. He did not reply for several more beats, but when he did it was not an answer.

 

"I heard you in my head," He told Mikkel weakly, and something on the other man's face betrayed his stoicism for just a moment. Carefully he stood again and leaned across the table toward Oliver, reaching behind the younger man’s ear to disengage a very small round device. He showed it to Oliver on the tip of his finger. Oliver did not know what it was, but he had a guess.

 

"You heard me in your ear. I knew a threat like the one I gave Sinclair wouldn't go without retribution, and I knew it was going to be you or me they got. I hoped it would just be me, but this was a safety precaution incase it went the other way." Oliver nodded, but Mikkel putting the device back into place stunted it. He licked his lips carefully; brain still not ready for full functionality, but the much-needed expulsion of the water in his stomach had helped.

 

"I didn't know if it was you, or the Mikkel I know, but it made me feel better. Made me not want to just die." Mikkel did not look at Oliver as he stepped away and grabbed his gun once more. He also did not sit again but, instead, slowly walked the perimeter of the room. Oliver had come to accept that this Mikkel did not share, did not take admissions like that well, but he had still hoped for something, anything, that was like his Mikkel. He wanted to feel like he was home, even for a moment.

 

"This Government likes its poisons; its mind controlling. What they forget, though, is that there are things in this world that can counteract what they do to a person." Oliver watched Mikkel's back as he slowly picked at the bullet imbedded in the wall. There was no way he would get it out, but it was at least a reason to not look at Oliver.

 

"What could counteract it?" Oliver asked meekly, wonderment in his voice.

 

" _Sentiment and familiarity,"_ Mikkel told him slowly in English, glancing for just one second back at Oliver before he derailed the conversation. "It’ll be a story I'll tell you one day, but right now we need to concentrate on getting out of here and getting as far off of the Government's radar as we can." Oliver nodded, this time more surely, and used his arms to try and help himself stand. Mikkel did not help immediately, but when he saw how difficult it was for the other man, he approached and propped him up. It was slow going, and even after getting to his feet, Oliver could not exactly stumble effectively, let alone run, crawl, or whatever else he would need to do to escape from that place. He looked at Mikkel and expected to see displeasure, even annoyance on his features, but he looked calm and easy. At first Oliver thought it really might have been his Mikkel, but then he placed the other emotions on the older man's face, and they were along the lines of understanding. He had been subjected to Government testing before; Oliver had gathered that much info from the snippets that Maria, the other members of Molious, and even this Mikkel himself had given up. But what clicked into place right then was that Mikkel had been subjected to the exact same brainwashing that the Government had just begun doing to Oliver. That was how the other man knew what Oliver needed to come out of it, because it had worked on him too.

 

Oliver knew he did not have all the time in the world to remember basic motor skills, but that was cemented when a warning siren began to blare through the base. Both Mikkel and Oliver gazed up at the ceiling as if it would hold all the answers, but Mikkel was listening and Oliver did it just more as reflex. They needed to hurry and get going, and without even a word from Mikkel, Oliver knew that.

 

"Either they just found the bodies and their cameras disabled, or we're in a lot more _shit_ than I planned on," Mikkel said, spoken obviously to Oliver, but toned almost like he was talking to the air. Oliver tried to force his legs to hurry and remember what walking was, but he stumbled a little and fell against the wall, gritting his teeth and slamming his eyes shut in frustration. He would get them both killed if he could not just remember how to walk.

 

Mikkel, however, seemed far less worried about Oliver's impaired state, and more intent on slinging his backpack from his shoulder to rummage through it. Oliver watched him through squinted eyes and scrunched brows. He should not have been as surprised as he was when Mikkel pulled out a pistol and handed it, grip first, toward him.

 

"We're going to be hugging walls, so as long as you can manage to walk like that, we're going to go." Oliver licked his lips and reached for the gun, but was not exactly thrilled with Mikkel's plan.

 

"Like hell. You should just go. I'm useless and will only slow you down." Mikkel turned a hard glare at Oliver, shifting something in his hand that Oliver immediately looked at. It was the Opal syringe that had had his name on it before the man debriefing him had received the bullet lobotomy. Mikkel did not even have to look at it as he fit the needle under a fingernail and injected the tar-black liquid into his own body.

 

"I risked a lot getting in here to get you out. So, here are your options, Oliver." His voice was monotone, his eyes hard and serious. "Either you shut up and follow me as fast and as quietly as you can, or I put a bullet in you right here so there is no chance that they will do to you what they wanted to. If I were you, I'd pick the first and stop arguing with me. There’s a lot riding on me getting you out of here, and though right now you probably feel a lot like a soldier, you’re not one, and you need to remember that." Oliver limply held the gun in his hand and stared blankly at Mikkel. He had kind of figured that death would have been the other option, but to hear that Mikkel would do it right there and right then put the severity of the situation in full light. Oliver knew he was not strong. He would succumb to the Government, run out of usefulness, and then be killed or be turned against those that had risked everything to help him. He would rather the bullet, but he would much rather attempt an escape first. If they got captured and it turned into him or Mikkel, Oliver hoped he, himself, would do what he thought was right. The drugs in his system told him that there was no question. If it came down to that Oliver swore he would not hesitate to kill himself.

 

"Alright, what should I do?" He asked quietly, and Mikkel relaxed a little, posture not reflecting that somewhere deep down he was still a killer. He gestured toward the door with a cock of his head and Oliver glanced at it momentarily before he returned his attention to Mikkel.

 

"Basically like before, back on the first night. Just stick with me and if I tell you something, you do it without hesitation. Even if that is to kill someone, Oliver." The notion of killing someone did not well up the dread Oliver had thought it would. Instead his brain thought more tactically, thought about how much he would slow Mikkel down, weighing the pros and cons of self-sacrifice and self-preservation.

 

"Are you going to be okay with…?" Oliver alluded to where Mikkel had doped himself with the Opal, and Mikkel spared a glance down at his blackened nail before he looked at Oliver again, hard and directly in the eyes.

 

"It takes the edge off, removes fear, and boosts my reaction. You'll understand when the Parepin and Prozira in your system gets out and the Opal can work." Oliver hoped that would be soon because somewhere, under the paranoia and twitching muscles, he could almost feel it. Oliver knew intellectually that the Government had put a ton of drugs into his system, but when Mikkel called them out by name, he was able to pinpoint the way they altered him. After all, he had just considered letting the older man kill him.

 

"Alright, then I'm ready." Oliver did not have to ask Mikkel to take into account his limitations, his lack of training, or even his opposition to killing anything bigger than a spider, because he knew that Mikkel knew all of that and would cover him as much as he could. However, they were in a Government base surrounded, probably, by hundreds of Government soldiers who really would not find any hardship in killing them or capturing them again. Oliver recognized that there could very well be a time to have to use force, and it still did not shake him.

 

Mikkel unbolted the door carefully, making as little noise as he could, before he edged the door open and took a look at their situation. The room was sound proof so there was a very good chance that they had not heard the gunshot that killed the interrogator in Oliver's room, but the destruction of the cameras could have given the Government a good idea about what was going on. Surprisingly though, the hallway was clear, and the only noise (yet one that masked virtually any other noise Mikkel would have been listening for) was a repeated message. It was in military code, echoing loudly in the hall. It seemed to be about the grade of threat the base was under. Aqua level ordinance: 71839J, it said in a robotic woman’s voice. Mikkel did not need to know the specific order number to know that Aqua level meant something really bad was happening. Not for a moment did he think that Aqua had been engaged because of him or Oliver.

 

"C'mon," Mikkel said quietly to Oliver before he pushed the door open and exited the cell. The Opal did more than just make him a better soldier; it ate into his system and told him more. He had no idea where the Americans made the drug, or how they had synthesized it to make him experience complete dissociation, but right then, in the thick of what could be a fight for his and Oliver's lives, he wanted that exact effect. He wanted to be removed from everything that held him back, even his overwhelming urge to make every person in that facility pay for the attack on Molious.

 

The halls appeared deserted, but noise from soldiers moving around would have been masked by the repeating alert announcement, so Mikkel kept his eyes peeled for any sign of hostility. Luckily the alarm also masked their noises: Oliver's stumbling, the gun shaking in his unsteady hands, and the way his shoulder slid along the wall. If the alarm was not for them, which was reaffirmed by the lack of soldiers charging Oliver's cell, then Mikkel assumed they had not found the dead sentries that were stationed strategically throughout the corridors yet.  As he had made his way further inside the building, Mikkel had had to get more creative with the killings. He had wasted two perfectly good knives in the name of stealth, and had to pick up lethal yet quiet weapons along the way.

 

Oliver let out a gasp of cry that was muffled by his own realization of the situation when Mikkel lead him into a small room off of the main corridor. Inside were three bodies, all almost unrecognizable with extreme facial wounds. Dissociation was a two way street, obviously, because though Mikkel remembered killing the guards, he had forgotten just how brutally. He had reverted to the soldier in himself, to the blind rage that was quite animalistic in nature, but yet very different from the Berserker’s qualities. All three guards had their eyes gouged out and faces raked up. Lying not far away was a spoon, fork, and knife. All three had blood glistening on them, just starting to grow sticky from exposure.

 

"Did you…" Oliver began to ask, but was cut off by Mikkel's hasty affirmation. He did not need to talk about what pure brutality he displayed, about the way he remembered, vaguely beneath the drugs, stabbing one of the men in the lung from the side, how the other got his throat slashed, and how the third was disarmed, dragged to the floor, and intestines punctured. How he took a few rounds, targeting each man in turn, ripping at their organs before using the other tools to blind them and rip their faces to pieces, stopping only after their voice boxes were removed, their mouths stretched and cut open, tongues cut out, and bits of skull made to peek out from blood and skin. Oliver really had not needed to see the bodies, but the room cut to the other side of the building via a maintenance hallway, and it would remove a lot of guesswork to take the short cut. If the kid were scared, then it would be just a lesson to him that though he had memories of a different Mikkel with the same face, it was not he. He was hardly a man anymore the drugs reminded Mikkel. He had hardly been a man for a long time.

 

"Be thankful that I'm not trying to kill you any more," Was all Mikkel told him before he lead Oliver past the bodies and out the door on the opposite side of the room, pushing back his own worries. The freshest dose of Opal would kick in soon and that would erase any guilt he felt.

 

Going was slow and thorough, but they came upon no resistance. The base seemed emptied out, and Mikkel's ever-present soldier instinct ranged between thinking that it was a stroke of good luck, and wondering just what else worse had drawn away every person in the base. If it was something more frightening than Mikkel's carving of dead men and pension for extreme violence, he hoped not to meet it.

 

The alarm continued on, but it was soon background noise to both men. It was information that was both nonsense to them and, yet, comforting in a way. As long as it continued to repeat, they were going to be able to make it out.

 

A T in the hall was where Mikkel paused. He was roughly ten feet from the intersection, and on his way in had taken note that it would be the trickiest part of their escape if they even could make it that far. He turned slightly, holding his hand up to signal that Oliver should stop and stay. He did not spend much of the exiting trip keeping tabs on the younger man, using the scuffs and labored breathing that made it past the overbearing sound of the alarm as evidence enough that he was still following, but when he focused his attention on the younger man, he began to notice just how bad off Oliver was.

 

Oliver looked strung out. They had had him for a few days, had probably been pushing the drugs into him after the first hour, and coming off of them was not exactly a walk in the park. A thin layer of sweat was shining on every bit of skin that showed, and his eyes were deep and dark. He continued to drool a little, too much water still in his system, and he shook from head to toe in light but constant tremors. Either they had given him so much Opal that his body no longer knew pain, or the kid was tougher than Mikkel had given him credit for. Either way, whether because of the drugs that made Mikkel’s own heart cold and uncaring or the fact that he knew that they were in mortal danger being anywhere within a five mile radius of the compound, Mikkel could not risk checking him over. He could not even spare time for the rest Oliver would need to recover. Instead he let the knowledge of Oliver's weakness and diminishing health pass right through him, letting instinct and primal preservation consume him again. He would worry about Oliver's state when they were safe.

 

Creeping forward, Mikkel shifted his gaze to the right, knowing that a sentry there would spot him against the left wall, but still listening and feeling for anything from his left. When he got to the corner, Mikkel peeked around, but the hallway, much like every other, was devoid of people. Carefully he lowered his pistol, stepping back against the wall to signal Oliver to join him. As he turned, though, he saw that Oliver was not alone. Sinclair stood behind him, gun pressed threateningly against Oliver's temple, and other hand over the younger man's mouth, stopping him from making any sound that would have been heard over the alarm. Oliver looked frightened, staring desperately at Mikkel as the gun shook between his palms from both the detox tremors and fear.

 

" _Told you to drop it, Oliver._ " Sinclair chided, and Mikkel’s instincts told him that he would never again get a chance to dispose of the man as cleanly as right then. As a soldier there was never a problem with civilian casualties. They were accepted, sometimes even encouraged, and the Prozira had brought him back to being a soldier. They had brought him back under, had begun to reform him into the property of the Government, but they had not finished. Mikkel was a soldier, he had no doubt about that, but he was a soldier of a different organization. He had been remade into a soldier of the Presence, and though the voices and images had become silent, Mikkel could still feel them watching him constantly. Carefully Mikkel stood up straight and nodded to Oliver, telling him that dropping the gun was a damn good idea. In the hold Sinclair had on him, him blowing Oliver's brain out would be the merciful death. Breaking his neck was far more brutal.

 

Oliver looked at Mikkel for several long seconds with unwavering eyes before the gun slipped easily out of his hands, colliding to the ground hard but not discharging. Mikkel held his hands up, palms facing Sinclair in an image of surrender, but he did not put the gun down. If he was told to, he would consider it, but until then, the simple act of shooting Malcolm through Oliver was still a very tempting offer, regardless of how the Presence warned him against it. Mikkel tried to push the Opal back, remind himself that sacrificing Oliver for his own safety was a stupid move, one that would be met with his own blood. He was not a heartless killer any more, regardless of how he had disfigured the guards.

 

" _Always thought you'd come back to haunt us, Mikkel Boedker. At the beginning you were so promising, such a good soldier. Now,_ " A harsh laugh left the man, not at all jovial and far more cynical. " _Now, you're just a rabid dog. No good to your precious Molious, your fiancée, or this boy. Biting hands that feed you left and right. Thought we could remind you of your loyalties, but now I see that was just wishful thinking._ "

 

" _Then why not put me down?_ " Mikkel asked, eyes hard on the man, not looking to Oliver who begged him silently to do something. The Opal should have made Oliver resistant to fear, but it still seemed to be lacking in his system, still hidden below the Parepin and the Prozira. Mikkel was not sure whether to buy him more time, or attempt to disengage Sinclair around him. " _That's what you do, isn't it? Put down the problem? Seemed to be your specialty if memory serves me._ " The cruel laugh came from Sinclair again, his attention turning down to Oliver who only rolled his eyes to look at him after the man's breath puffed against his hair.

 

" _I want that death match, Boedker! I want him to rip you apart. I wanted you to lead my army, but now I see how blind I had been. There is no redemption for you and that is why, right now, I’m done with it all. You’ll get the death by bullet you always wanted._ ” Mikkel's fingers twitched. He wanted to take the shot and to hell with Oliver's survival. Oliver was not a soldier, regardless of the drugs and training they had done to him in the days Oliver was captive. However something whispered to him, told him to wait, and drew the seconds out to eternity. The Presence told him that it would be over soon and no actions from him were needed. Maybe it was the Opal that gave him perverse optimism, but it was there, and the more Mikkel tried to ignore it, the stronger it became.

 

Sinclair moved, slow motion to Mikkel who could do nothing to disarm him. He shifted, gun moving from Oliver’s temple to out-stretched, barrel pointed directly at Mikkel. He wanted to shoot Sinclair while the older man was not fully behind Oliver, wanted to take the shot just as he had millions of times before, but the Presence stilled him. It would not risk Oliver’s safety for Mikkel’s, and though Mikkel wanted to feel wounded by that, he could not. Finally something in those never ending seconds clicked in Oliver, something loud and violent that shot through his system like electricity. He jerked, slamming his head back and into Sinclair's face, feeling his nose and teeth shattering with the impact. He turned and slid the man's knife from the holster on his belt without looking and, using both of his hands, Oliver slammed the decorative blade into Sinclair’s shoulders one at a time before the man even had the chance to fall back. Sinclair's scream echoed loudly above the alert, and that, along with the blood splattering onto Oliver's face, snapped him out of whatever had come over him. Wide-eyed in fright, Oliver stumbled back toward Mikkel who pushed past Oliver. He grabbed the knife just as it came loose of the younger man's shaking grip, and went to work. He bent over Sinclair; cutting tendons on his legs and arms, not letting the man have a second chance to catch them unaware.

 

"Grab the guns," Mikkel told Oliver, and the boy did not immediately comply. He continued to stare in horror at what he had done, and it took another harsh bark of orders from Mikkel for him to move and pick them up. There were specks of blood on his skin and after he had a hold of his and Mikkel's guns, he began scrubbing his hands off on his jeans. He shook and kept his eyes down, unwilling to look at what he had done as Mikkel finished.

 

"I… I didn't…" Oliver began, and was told to shut up by Mikkel as he handed Sinclair's gun to Oliver. He took it, fumbling with all three, hands not entirely wanting to work, as Mikkel moved around Sinclair to grab at his injured and useless shoulders. Ignoring the screaming, and hoping that no one else heard them, Mikkel dragged the limp body toward the door that Sinclair had come out of. He left streaks of blood that trailed after them and just hoped Aqua alert would keep everyone away for a little longer. Once inside, Mikkel realized exactly where they were. The room had been updated since he had been there, but it was definitely where they had experimented on him. It had been the reason Mikkel had always wanted to return there with countless pounds of C-Four. It had been the room that plague Mikkel subconsciously, unable to draw upon memories of it, only feelings.

 

Mikkel threw Sinclair to the floor unceremoniously as Oliver shut the door behind them. Moving around the mutilated body, Mikkel grabbed a hold of the man's uniform collar and pulled him up, eyeing him dangerously through the blood that poured from his shattered nose.

 

" _I'm imagining you're pretty fucking terrified right now,_ " Mikkel hissed through gritted teeth, giving the man a hard shake. " _Imagine you're thinking how you should have just put the bullet in us and walked away, but you have some damn pride, don't you, Sinclair. Some need to terrorize, to make us kill ourselves. Your downfall, your weakness, is how much you don't listen to instinct._ " The man managed a snarl, spitting blood into Mikkel's face that only elicited a closing of Mikkel’s eyes. He had been covered in worse.

 

" _Think you won, Boedker? Carved me up a bit, made me scream? Soldiers will be on their way here in a few seconds, and they have that instinct you enjoy so much. They'll blow you and the little boy into bite sized pieces and then we'll feed them to the civilians and they will ask for more as their starving stomachs fill!_ " Mikkel glanced back to Oliver who had yet to calm down, who hyperventilated against the wall by the door, who looked at the machines, the gurneys, and flashed back to what they had done to him there. Blood dripped down Oliver’s face, still speckled his hand where they held too many guns, shaking and useless. Whatever had clicked in him and allowed them survival had passed as fast as it had come, and left him as just the outsider again. Mikkel dropped Sinclair who howled in pain again, and approached Oliver. It took until Mikkel wiped a bit of blood off his face for Oliver to realize he was even there.

 

"Are you okay?" Mikkel asked quietly, keeping their conversation private, even though it was in Swedish and more than likely not understood by Sinclair. At first Oliver did not move, still a deer caught in headlights, but then he nodded slowly, almost contemplatively, before finally settling on shaking his head no. It took him a few moments to find his voice, and when he did it came out meek.

 

"I don't… I didn't mean to… S-something just kinda… happened, and then I had the knife, and I knew where to… to…" Mikkel grabbed a bit of Oliver's hair, bending him to place their foreheads together. He could feel the shaking going through the boy, letting it bleed off into himself where he remained grounded.

 

"You know he was going to kill us, right? Maybe not right then, but eventually we'd both be dead." Mikkel waited for Oliver to nod a little in response. "Then you also know that what you did, however you did it, was just for self-protection. You're not him, Oliver. You're not me, Oliver. You are still you and this blood is not on your hands. Let this blood be on mine." It took awhile for Oliver to speak, but when he did it was barely a whisper.

 

"Are you going to kill him?" Mikkel nodded his affirmation that time, gently massaging at the back of Oliver's neck. It was juxtaposition from the words he spoke which were soft and yet hard.

 

"I'm going to get my revenge for everyone I loved. I'm going to get revenge for Sidney, Molious, you, and myself. It won’t take long, so please wait outside and stand guard." Oliver did not move as Mikkel took two of the guns from his hands and stepped back. Oliver remained where he was and finally stopped shaking.

 

"I want to watch." He said a bit louder, eyes hard and directed right at Mikkel who looked back at him. "I want revenge too, Mikkel."

 

"Not your fight, Oliver," He reminded the younger man, and expected no more resistance from him, but got a sharp tone from Oliver in return.

 

"It is my fight. They made it my fight. This isn't my world, this isn't where I belong, but I'm here, and what they did was real. What they did to you, Molious, and me was real. This is my fight and I want to see it through." He was resigned; his body and mind both confident in his decision. It was the Opal, Mikkel reminded himself, finally breaking past the Prozira and Parepin, taking charge of Oliver, but the younger man had always been stronger than he had given him credit for. It had become his fight when Sinclair’s soldiers had almost killed him back on the street the first night, and it really was something he deserved to see the end of. Carefully Mikkel nodded, sliding his own pistol into the holster on his hip before bending. He shoved Sinclair's pistol in his backpack and then turned, grabbing the man and pulling him across the room by one almost severed shoulder.

 

" _Just fucking shoot me!_ " Sinclair demanded in howls of pain, but Mikkel ignored him, dragging him to a padded chair, hoisting him up and tossing him unceremoniously against it. He pulled and twisted the man's useless limbs into place against the metal structure of the chair, pulling leather straps tight so he could not wiggle from the chair. Finally, Mikkel grabbed a fistful of the man's greying hair and yanked his head back, strapping it in place against the metal brace that forced him to look up. Sinclair knew what was going on and shouted all levels of curses toward and against the two men, but Mikkel paid him no mind. When Mikkel stepped passed the chair and turned up a pressure gauge, Oliver finally knew what was happening as well.

 

At first Oliver felt terrible, flinching as the water started to shoot down against Sinclair's face. Mikkel let the man sputter and fight the stream for a few seconds before he moved back around the man. He pulled on Sinclair's jaw, wedging it open and getting each hand inside his mouth in turn. The man screamed, but no longer begged as Mikkel pulled once, hard, and left Sinclair's bottom jaw broken and dislodged from the rest of his skull. It hung limp and crooked, tongue twitching as the water plummeted right into the open chasm of his mouth. Oliver had wanted to see, and Mikkel made sure he saw all he needed to. The man would drown in or explode from the water, but he was dead. No help was coming for Sinclair, none that would arrive in time regardless, and his last thoughts would be about how those that had been force-fed the water had felt. Oliver felt nothing, and then he felt sick. He looked away right before Mikkel pulled his side arm and shot Sinclair in the heart, jumping as the gun discharged but still unwilling to look any longer at the sight. With one last final twitch Sinclair died, body under the constant flow of water. Oliver refused to move even when Mikkel returned to him, even when the older man placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

 

It was a few minutes before Mikkel decided that it was enough time for Oliver to have processed what had happened. It had not been pretty, had definitely not been humane, but it was satisfying to Mikkel and, silently, he thanked the Presence for giving him that one ounce of peace. It was not over, he knew, but at least one front of his war had ended in a victory.

“We have to go, Oliver,” Mikkel said softly and though it took several more seconds, the younger man seemed to come around, nodding softly and slowly. His hand tightened around his gun and Mikkel took that as a good sign. There was a little bit of the soldier still in Oliver, and it was possible they would need that in order to escape. Mikkel slowly nodded to Oliver too, attempting to reassure him, before he moved to the door, checked that the coast was clear, and, together, they both slipped back into the endless white corridors.


	14. Another Version of the Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 14 Warnings: Character Deaths, Gore, Language, Violence, Mentions of: Drug Use, Blood Diseases**
> 
> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possession)  
> Song for Chapter 14 Another Version of the Truth: Waterlines - Basement Birds

The only words spoken between the two men were basic commands as they made their way from the base. Mikkel did not need to ask if Oliver was all right, knowing fair well that he was not. What he had witnessed, what he had experienced, what he had felt, was not right for anyone, let alone someone his age. It would have been unheard of before the war, but America’s presence had changed everything. No one should have had to see people die unnaturally, the horrors of war and resistance, but they lived in a world where it had been brought to their doorsteps. No one should have had to watch his or her loved ones be gunned down, Mikkel rationalized; not even strangers gunned down. He had not known exactly how or why Oliver was there, but after everything, Mikkel believed what Maria had written about him to be true. It was the only thing he knew to be true at that point, and yet he had no evidence to back that up. The only thing he had was Oliver himself, and the way the Presence pushed the thoughts about the younger man onto him.

 

They escaped through an access door that Mikkel had disabled the alarm on, entering the outer grounds of the base where the darkness of night greeted them. The silence was deafening, the alarm that had been loud and imposing inside finally being blocked by the heavy door, which clicked shut behind them. It would have been a nice change of pace if it did not require Mikkel to readjust his focus, but the silence did mean that he could possibly hear threats before they snuck up behind them and put a gun to Oliver's head as Sinclair had. However, on the other side of that coin, it also meant that they could just as easily be detected. Mikkel glanced back, holding his index finger to his lips to show that Oliver should remain silent. Oliver nodded back, nodding once more when Mikkel whispered for him to follow but further behind than in the hallways. Carefully they both crept toward the center of the outer grounds, Mikkel desperately wanting to get some idea of what had been happening out there that had lead to the emptying out the of main building.

 

The structure they used as cover was a long yet narrow hall, and it took a little bit of time for them to reach where it opened out toward the main field. When they did so Mikkel took to the wall, peeking around the corner of the building. From the safety of darkness he could not see much, but upon glancing around the building and toward where the barbed wired gate stood several hundred yards out, Mikkel gathered a lot of information. There were thousands of soldiers out there, all lying face down in the mud. He held his hand up again, blindly signaling for Oliver to stop, and he took a rough estimation of what the casualties were.

 

It was almost impossible to tell that the soldiers were dead because their fronts were completely flush against the soft earth, but unless it was a very strange and elaborate trap, uniformed men, especially the Americans, never got dirty in their own bases. It would have been easier just to ambush them inside, so a trap seemed unlikely. Mikkel retreated back to Oliver, speaking low and close to him.

 

"Aqua is something worse than us," Mikkel began, which made Oliver scrunch his brow in confusion. "Remember when I said it's either for us or worse? Well it’s worse. Seems every member of this base is dead in the courtyard, but I'm going to have to go out to be sure." Mikkel could immediately tell Oliver would protest, and was not disappointed a moment later.

 

"What did they die from? How do you know that you won’t die too?" Mikkel quirked a light grin. The kid was learning that was for sure. Maybe it had been good Maria had taken charge of looking out for him, he reasoned. Maybe it was good he had left Oliver there to experience all he had. He had grown a lot that week, and it showed. For a moment Mikkel thought back to the woman, to her beliefs and the way she lifted spirits. He hoped that she knew about the soldiers that were probably dead and smiled from whatever version of heaven she believed in. It was only fitting that they got their dues for her death.

 

"I don't know, and that's why you're staying here. Back there on the other side of the main complex is a tunnel, which leads to an underground well. About three-quarters of the way down is another tunnel that leads out past the city. It's several miles, but I blew all the doors before I came in." Oliver seemed to understand what Mikkel was going for, and he shot back a quick "no" but Mikkel continued to speak past it.

 

"I'm going to go out there as quickly and quietly as I can. I have no intention of getting caught or killed, but I need to make sure this place is done. I need to know that they all got what they deserve. But I also need you safe, so here's the plan. You're going to stay here, and count. Five minutes, Oliver. If I don't give you a sign of all clear, or if I get captured, then you head for that tunnel and get out." Oliver was not going to agree, but Mikkel left no room for negotiation. "If I get caught, I'm going to kill myself. There will be no point in you staying here. If it's clear, we'll walk right out the front gate and leave this miserable place behind us. That is the plan, and there's no use fighting about it." Carefully, almost thoughtfully, Oliver nodded. Mikkel, a tiny bit surprised that Oliver had actually listened to him, nodded back and slid the backpack off his shoulders. He held it out to the younger man and Oliver took it with a confused look. It was heavier than Oliver expected, but he shrugged it on, before looking back at Mikkel. It made sense that he should have it, but the exchange of the bag still felt like a premature good-bye. Mikkel would come back and Oliver would hand it over again, he tried to tell himself. It was simply a precaution.

 

"Don't get caught or killed," Oliver told Mikkel, and got an almost silent chuckle in return. The older man reached up to ruffle Oliver's hair, unsure if his sudden fondness toward Oliver was because of the younger man’s transformation into the pseudo soldier Mikkel was, or because the Presence had made him want to be fond of Oliver. Taking a half step away, not wanting to think about it, Mikkel raised his pistol, turned, and prepared to move away.

 

"Don't plan on it," He told Oliver. "Would much rather find a way to get you back to the other version of me." With those parting words, which left Oliver staring at him, Mikkel returned to the threshold of the main yard and, with a moment's hesitation, disappeared around the building.

 

Oliver sighed heavily, unsure of how to take Mikkel’s parting words, and gave the older man approximately an extra thirty seconds before he began silently counting. Five minutes, he reminded himself, or the first sign of danger. He owed the man enough to listen to his instructions.

 

Mikkel knew how to remain unseen in most environments. The Government had trained him to be a tactical expert, and though the Opal had passed its peak, he still felt the disconnection to almost everything. He had no problem putting a bullet in every body he found in the field, slitting every throat to assure they really were dead. However, for the sake of time, he hoped that the submersion in the toxic water that had turned the ground so soft would have assured their deaths.

 

On the front of the building that Mikkel moved against were a few windows and one door. Craning his neck, Mikkel looked inside the hall. It was packed tightly with rows of bunks against each wall. They were all seemingly unoccupied, but many bodies, nearing about half of what would fill the hall to maximum capacity, were sprawled out on the floor. Like those outside in the field, they also lay face down. They would not have drowned like those outside, and the confines of a building provided some cover for Mikkel to check them, so he decided to start there.

 

After making sure nothing looked amiss (besides the mass mysterious deaths which, honestly, seemed strange enough), Mikkel edged open the door and slid inside. He checked every point of the building from his spot at the door, ready to slip back out incase of a sudden ambush, but none of the soldiers stirred. Inside of his head Mikkel had been counting and two minutes had already been used up in his slow and methodical approach to the situation. Three more and Oliver would be gone, and Mikkel would have no hope of catching him. He kept his gun at the ready as he approached the nearest body to his position, his boots squeaking softly on the dampened floor. Eyes up and scanning, he carefully placed his index and middle fingers to the man's jugular, feeling for a pulse for just a moment. None met his finger, so Mikkel moved to another corpse. Five bodies later, and with no sign of life, Mikkel decided to examine one.

 

Having to lower his weapon was something Mikkel did not feel comfortable doing, but the men were muscular and heavy. After a moment of wondering what his best move would be, Mikkel holstered his gun. With his hands free, he grabbed the man's shoulder and pushed him over. Mikkel had assumed he would need to flip the man completely in order to see whatever wound had killed him, but all he had needed was the face. The soldier had not bled out, not even a drop of it on the floor. And yet it seemed as if his eyes had been torn out. Holes of blackened flesh remained where the orbs should have been. Had the Opal not still been in his system, Mikkel would have gone right back out where he had come in, far too unnerved by the wound. He would have collected Oliver and told him to run. These men had not been slaughtered by an attack, but burned out seemingly from the inside. Mikkel worked up the nerve to check a few more bodies and all seemed the same. Though Mikkel had no idea what weapon could have created such wounds, he had an idea of what might have had the power to do it.

 

With a newfound sense of urgency, Mikkel returned to the field. He looked for any sign of hostility, any sign of life, but none emerged from the complete stillness of the usually busy base. He ventured out to the middle of the field where bodies lay on one another, propped up just slightly by their intertwined arms and legs. Regardless, they all seemed firmly planted in the mud. They had identical wounds, had experienced identical deaths, and they all wore the same grotesque faces. Mikkel stood up straight and gave one last look around, before he lifted his hand to his mouth and released a shrill whistle. Oliver's head popped out from behind the corner of where they had hidden, but Mikkel gave a thirty count before he waved him over. The whistle would have alerted anyone in the area, anyone that wanted to put a bullet in Mikkel, anyone that had happened to still be alive, but no movements came. Everything remained still and silent in the exposed graveyard. Mikkel signaled for Oliver to join him, and the younger man hurried out, feet slipping in the mud with a soft squish that echoed around the otherwise silent compound.

 

"Clear?" Oliver asked, which Mikkel felt there was no need to respond to.

 

"You waited almost six minutes," He said with some displeasure in his tone. Oliver did not even bother to look sheepish about it.

 

"Guess I am bad at counting." The younger man commented back in almost a monotone, which resulted in Mikkel grunting out another displeased noise, yet he did nothing else but retrieve his backpack from Oliver's shoulders. He spoke as he worked.

 

"We have to get moving." He told Oliver, who looked confused. Sure, dead men surrounded them, but they seemed to be in no immediate danger and so he did not exactly understand the rush in Mikkel's tone.

 

"How did they die?" He asked after Mikkel had begun moving toward the main gate of the compound. He hurried to fall in stride behind the older man; the place Oliver had come to realize Mikkel normally wanted him. They were not running, but they were certainly not loitering either. Mikkel did not answer right away, still piecing things together as it was. Their organs, the dead soldier’s organs, had probably been scorched much like their eyes. They had probably died in complete agony, the screams of which would have been impossible to hear inside the base with the alarm sounding. The alarm had obviously held some key information that had been missed. Mikkel thought back: It had been an Aqua alert, a very strange color decision. Most danger rankings were common in the concept of cool colors for minimal threat and hot colors for serious threat, but the alarm had been an Aqua color. That logic told him whatever had done that to the soldiers had been perceived as a minimal threat, but their almost concurrent deaths meant that it had actually been something pretty damn threatening. So it was something that the military had thought unimportant, had not given serious weight to, and which had in turn bit them in the ass.

 

"Mikkel?"

 

"It was the Presence," Mikkel said, almost surprising himself with how sure he was. For years there had been the sightings of the giant hands reaching from the skies. For years the Government had said it was just mass hallucinations. Mikkel had almost been on board with that theory before he had seen them himself, and had still doubted their actual existence up until they had taken him over and saved his life. They really were out there, whatever they were, and they were no longer just making random people feel really terrible about how bad the world had gotten.

 

"What?" Oliver asked after a few seconds of quiet concern. There was a moment where he jogged in the slick mud in order to walk next to Mikkel who still refused to look at him. "No, Mikkel, really, what? They were just giant glowing hands. How could they suddenly kill all these people?" Mikkel continued not meet Oliver’s eyes. Once outside the gate, he grabbed a hold of the younger man's arm and pulled him to the side of the path. They walked along the fence toward the light pollution several miles in the distance, which was a sure sign of Stockholm. He never stopped moving though Oliver really wanted the older man to stop and explain to him that they were going to be okay; that he had a plan. However, Oliver understood why stopping and stalling would not have been the best idea.

 

"I wasn't on Opal when we saw them," Mikkel told him in even tones, keeping his attention ever shifting, but never on Oliver. The younger man scoffed and did stop then, calling after Mikkel.

 

"You had turned around after we saw them and had already used at least one," He told Mikkel, unsure where his own hostility was coming from, frowning heavily as he thought back regardless. He had been told that they were seen while on Opal, and sure Oliver had not been on the drug but he had been an anomaly all along. Mikkel was not. Oliver wanted to puncture holes in Mikkel's theory. He wanted to have it that someone equally or more so pissed at the Government than they were had walked in there and slaughtered all of the bad guys. He did not want it that aliens or gods or… whatever the Presence was could just remove thousands of lives from the world in a matter of minutes. He wanted Mikkel to look at him and tell him that he would do what it took to protect them both. He wanted to feel even an ounce of safety, but got none. Mikkel had stopped, turned, and looked at him. The older man stalked back, but no longer looked like a scared child. He looked annoyed, and Oliver placed it easily.

 

"I'm not always high, and how dare you think that I am. I shoot up to not be a Berserker, to not just slit your fucking throat for saying something like that. I get high to be that perfect soldier and save your life again and again, and I get off of it to feel the pain that I deserve for what I've done." Oliver slunk back from the verbal attack, but only a little. He did not know what this Mikkel had gone through. He knew next to nothing about the man, and it was a cheap shot, but from what he had seen, it had seemed to be the truth. Mikkel always seemed to be on drugs, to be under them somewhere.

 

"I'm sorry," Oliver said, though surprisingly not meek in the least. He knew when he was wrong, and Mikkel definitely made him feel like he was wrong, but something kept him numb to it. "So if you saw the Presence, and I saw the Presence, and they're real, why do you think they would do this?" Mikkel tried to calm himself, huffing a bit to let out the anger he had accumulated from Oliver's accusation. There was no need to get mad at the kid, but as the drugs drained from his system, he felt the self-loathing creep back in. He felt the agony of every mistake he had ever made. It ate away at him and he felt as if he was one of those men lying dead in the mud on the other side of the fence. He almost wished he were one of them. Moments, even minutes, of indescribable agony was better than the years of hatred he had let eat away at his heart.

 

"When they were there on the streets, I heard them talking about humanity. About how we messed this all up and how we were going to pay for it." Mikkel spoke slowly, schooling himself and convincing Oliver to walk while they talked with a gesture. It was not the pace that it had been previously, not one that mimicked his desperate need to get as far away as he could from the Presence’s threat. They had made good on it to the soldiers, but he did not run from it any longer. Instead they just walked.

 

"I only heard the other people. Just the shouting and the crying and stuff," Oliver commented back, a little slow and unsure. Mikkel nodded at that, already knowing somehow. He had never asked Oliver, and though the younger man had talked at length about it days prior, Mikkel had never asked what he had experienced. There was no reason Mikkel should have thought that the culpability would have been directed at him alone and not at everyone together. There had been no reason to think that the Presence could have addressed them all individually and yet simultaneously, but he had also never actually thought that Oliver had heard them. It made Mikkel wonder just how long the Presence had been with him, just under the skin, waiting to move when Oliver fell into danger.

 

"I heard things. I heard this voice. Actually, it was more like a million voices. It was like I heard every language ever and understood them all and they all told me that this was it. That this was the final moment where we could change and save ourselves." Mikkel paused, and Oliver took that time to intercede.

 

"To save ourselves from what?" Oliver asked, though the bodies in the field were a fairly good reason for Oliver to imagine that they had meant death. Mikkel cocked his head toward the base and confirmed Oliver’s suspicion.

 

"From what happened to the men in there. I'm guessing that's their answer to it all: to all we've done to each other, this world, and ourselves. They didn't exactly state the consequences, but I felt them. That if we didn't stop, if we didn't fix everything we broke in this world, that we were done for."

 

"Just us?" Oliver asked, meekness finally slipping into his tone. Mikkel slowly realized that Oliver not hearing the threat meant something. He had not shared the same hardships Mikkel had, not even the same timeline. He had not been there to experience the world dying. He did not only remember the stars in the sky from picture books he read as a child. Mikkel had been barely the age of two when the last star had been blocked out of the night sky. He could not even call to mind what they had actually looked like.

 

"All of humanity, really," Mikkel said, almost whimsically. There was no humor in his voice, but no real regret or horror either, and the lack of emotion made him wonder if it was he or the Presence speaking. Mikkel had always just gone with the tide for a long time. He had never thought about righting the true wrongs of the world until he joined Molious. Even then he was run by spite and misery, not love and compassion. "We're all guilty of it. We all just let this planet rot under our feet and never thought about fixing it or each other. We only thought about ourselves, and to hell with others.

 

“I've killed a lot of people, Oliver, and maybe I'm the worst of the lot, but the blood of the world is on everyone's hands, and there's no reason to think otherwise. We all played a role in it." Both men shared silence for several minutes. They both were lost in thought over what Mikkel had said, though Mikkel had begun to think all but the last part were the words of the Presence. It fit, it all fit, except for one thing. Oliver thought about it for a while before he asked.

 

"Then why didn't I hear them?" Of course, the one piece that did not seem to fit into the puzzle at all was Oliver's existence. He was dead, by all accounts. He had been shoved in a box and buried somewhere. He was no longer in the timeline, and yet there he was, standing next to Mikkel, talking to him about how very soon they would both probably die.

 

"I believe you, you know?" Mikkel responded after another minute of silence, which made Oliver make a confused hum. It had not been an answer. "I believe now that this isn't where you're from. I think they didn't speak to you because none of this, not a single part of it, was because of you. Oliver, you are the only person that didn’t do anything to this world."

 

Oliver had more questions, had more things he wanted explained, but he knew he had always walked a fine line between helpfully inquisitive and rudely annoying. He decided to err on the side of caution just incase Mikkel had decided that he really was no longer worth the trouble and did kill him. Silently they hiked miles, Oliver having fallen a few steps behind in order to also mentally separate himself from Mikkel. The older man was not the only one that needed time to think, and Oliver’s thoughts returned to Maria and the words she had written about him. He was supposed to do something, stop the death of the world, but he had no idea how to do so.

 

Mikkel, though still conscious of his surroundings, thought about their next course of action. The voices of the Presence had told him much, and it had not been a very nice picture it had painted days before on the city streets. Humanity had obviously not changed their ways after the final warning, had not done what was required of them to allow any kind of stay of execution for the sins they had committed. However, the Presence’s next move still remained to be seen. Mikkel tried to hold out hope that only the worst of the offenders would be punished with the gruesome death that had been brought upon the soldiers, even though he knew he would be amongst the bunch. If others were spared, those that had already suffered through the failure of their fellow men, then he would take the unbearable agony. He tried to hold out hope, but it slowly began to wane. Everyone had done something that was worth death by the Presence’s philosophy. Everyone had done something to push the Earth, and each other, too far. Mikkel glanced back at Oliver who looked worn out, exhausted and near collapse. Oliver probably felt like the Earth felt: just done. Carefully Mikkel cleared his throat and slowed to a stop, gesturing with his gun toward a pile of old and long dead brush.

 

"Let's just take a minute." He did not want to say it was for Oliver's sake, but it was. He had to have come out of the height of the drugs a while ago, and his body would have been way past the point where it would have broken for normal people. In any other circumstance he would have offered Oliver some water to flush the Parepin out of his system, but at that moment he doubted the sight of even filtered bottled water would have been any comfort. More so, lingering traces of the drugs were probably the only thing keeping Oliver conscious. Under them his body was probably screaming to stop and give in.

 

Oliver flopped unceremoniously down onto the dead twigs and sighed, eyes closed and body taking up more space than Mikkel had thought his long frame could. Mikkel took half a minute in the silence to listen. There was always the chance that the crunching dead foliage had alerted someone to their presence, but nothing but the soft wind came to Mikkel’s ears. Carefully he crouched next to Oliver, reaching down to take the younger man's wrist, getting a slightly annoyed look from Oliver in return, which he ignored. He had meant that they would rest, not sleep.

 

"I’m checking your pulse. Until the drugs are out of your system, you really can't let it get too low. It hadn’t been rare for the drugs to kill people back in the day, but now it’s almost unheard of. Still not worth taking the chance." Mikkel stared at his wristwatch until he was certain Oliver's heartbeat was above a normal resting rate. Sure, the Parepin would pass faster if he was sweating and rehydrating with clean water, but there was no reason to put Oliver's body through any more stress than was absolutely necessary. Besides, without an endless supply of water to let Oliver replace the tainted with, dehydration would have been a very real threat. Mikkel released Oliver’s wrist, the younger man letting it drop to the ground with no restraint.

 

"No sleeping," Mikkel told him, which drew a mildly childish whine from Oliver who lethargically shifted on the brush. Mikkel was not kidding, though, so he nudged out his pocket flashlight and pulled one of Oliver's eyelids open. He got the younger man's attention with that, having to back off as Oliver flailed and complained, enduring the onslaught of disgruntled questions posed toward him about why blinding him was necessary.

 

"I’m checking your pupil response. You’re pretty dense about these things.” Mikkel said, tone mildly put off, but still with a hint of amusement. “Punch me and I’ll punch back." He was not sure when he had grown fond of Oliver, how a lost and confused kid had become part of the close knit group that he held, but when he had to beat back the smile that tried to creep onto his face, he knew he would do anything to save the younger man. Oliver begrudgingly allowed Mikkel to shine the light into each eye in turn, too worn out to really ask why he felt the need to attack him with tests. Pupil response was normal, and there was not too much more Mikkel could do to make sure he was going to survive, so he just re-pocketed the flashlight and carefully sat next to Oliver. He held his gun loosely but never let his guard wane.

 

"Just rest a little, and we'll get moving in a few."

 

"Where're we going?" Oliver asked, cracking an eye open a little to regard the older man through the after images that floated in his vision. He looked nothing like his Mikkel at that moment, and though Oliver felt safe, he also felt his heart sink a little more.

 

"To the city. We can't stay out here, we're too exposed, and the city might hold some answers about what exactly had happened." Oliver did not respond, did not question the plan, which Mikkel was glad for. He just rolled over, away from Mikkel, on the dead brush and closed his eyes again. The older man hoped a little sleep would not make him worse, because he no longer had the heart to make Oliver suffer more. At least, if the drugs took him down, he would die peacefully in his sleep.

 

"Just let me know when we're going," Oliver mumbled, and Mikkel remained silent.

 

It was only a half an hour later when Mikkel shifted to stand. Oliver woke up quickly but groggily as he glanced around, sobering up when he realized that the memories of their predicament had not been a dream.

 

"Already?" He asked slowly, and Mikkel nodded, holding out his hand to haul Oliver to his feet. The younger man took it slowly, and brushed off his clothes when he was upright. Mikkel bent to grab Oliver's gun, holding the grip out toward him.

 

"You're lucky I let you sleep at all, so come on." The glow behind the smog, which was widely figured to be the sun, seemed to be near midday, and they did still have an hour or two to trek, depending on Oliver's speed. He looked a little better, but just a little, and Mikkel hoped he would not be too much of a hindrance. It took about fifteen minutes for the younger man to really get his head back in gear, but once he did Oliver seemed more eager to get to the city than Mikkel did. Mikkel figured it was because Oliver associated cities with beds and sleep, safety and security. Mikkel associated them with traps, checkpoints, and disguises. He hoped that it actually would be status quo when they got there, even with the hardships that would bring on them.

 

Mikkel sensed danger before they even got to the outer wall of the city. Oliver had picked up his pace significantly when the city came into sight, but Mikkel grabbed his shoulder, pulling him to a stop while they were inside the brush line. Oliver had made a disgruntled noise, tried to ask what the big idea was, but Mikkel held up his hand and silenced him. Slinging the backpack from his shoulders again, the older man pulled out a scope. Hunkering down, he raised it to his eye and surveyed the situation.

 

There were no guards, and that immediately did not bode well with Mikkel. Actually, outside of the gate, and on the watchtower, there appeared to be no movement at all.

 

"Shit," He hissed, which made Oliver crouch lower to him, squinting as if to see what the other man saw.

 

"What? What’s wrong?" Oliver had never been to the gates of the city. The only time he had been outside of Stockholm he had been blindfolded, gagged, and drugged in the back of a truck, so he had no clue what the checkpoints would look like on a normal day. They definitely would not have been unguarded, Mikkel knew.

 

"Something's wrong. This place should be crawling with Government soldiers, especially if they saw what had gone down at the base. Even if they were getting radio silence from the base, they would have upped patrols. And then there's the fact that we've seen no one going out there to check on the base. This is definitely not right." Oliver frowned heavily and stood again, pushing the dead bushes from his path as he began hiking on toward the city. Mikkel swore low and under his breath, shoving the scope back into his bag as he hurried to catch up with Oliver who seemed to be even more on a mission. He swore that if Oliver were only concerned with finding a place to sleep, Mikkel would put him under.

 

"Oliver, what fucking part of 'this is wrong' did you not understand?" Mikkel asked, grabbing a hold of Oliver’s shoulder and pulling him to a stop. The younger man looked disgruntled and it honestly surprised Mikkel a little. His tone of voice did not help and actually made his finger twitch a little toward his pistol.

 

"I understood all of it, thank you. But you said there are no guards, that something is wrong. It might be something we can help with, or it might be that everyone knows how to protect themselves from what had happened to those people at the base and that we can be saved too. You said we are dead men out here, so let us go in and maybe find a way to keep ourselves safe." Mikkel frowned heavily. He wanted to argue, wanted to tell Oliver that no, they were going to keep hiking, find somewhere that felt right and not like a death trap, but Oliver made a good point. Their survival was hovering right around twenty-percent out in the wasteland they had been traversing, but there was no guarantee that it would have been any better inside the city. However, there was a chance it could have been. He just wished Oliver had not been so quick to follow his own instinct and charge ahead.

 

"Fine, we'll go in, but if it's wrong, if there's less of a chance of us surviving in there, then we're out and I'm finding you somewhere safe." Oliver pursed his lips, obviously planning to say something that he slowly decided not to. He nodded and after one more squeeze of Mikkel’s hand on his shoulder, as if to say he would hold Oliver to that agreement, they both headed off.

 

Mikkel did not move as fast as Oliver wanted, but Oliver knew that the older man would be true to his word. He would keep them both as safe as he could until they could assess their safety. Oliver had stopped simply tolerating Mikkel's precaution and actually began wondering if the man had been right all along when they eventually caught sight of the guards. Mikkel had not seen them on their initial survey of the city because, exactly like the soldiers at the base, they were face down and slightly compressed into the mud.

 

Oliver thought it was strange that outside of the base it had been bone dry, almost like there had been no rain in months, and even the plants were brittle and snapped easily. Where there were bodies, however, the ground appeared soaked and held tracks where it had been walked on, like a rain had fallen right there just before all the people had died. He mentioned it quietly to Mikkel as they hid behind some debris piles not too far from the gates. Mikkel looked thoughtful about the question, but Oliver suspected he already had an answer for it.

 

"What? Is it… is it their blood?"

 

"No, they're clean. Blood would wet the ground but also get on them. It's water."

 

"But it didn't rain just there," Oliver pointed out, like it had not been obvious. Mikkel glanced at Oliver, but it was not reproachful for stating what was basically common sense. It was calculating, almost as if he was trying to figure out how to break the news to the younger man. He was, and decided there was no easy way to do it. Fast, Mikkel thought. He needed to tell Oliver fast and with no lies.

 

"It's their water." Mikkel responded in a level tone. Oliver did not understand, so Mikkel pushed on. "They looked like they were burned, but now I think that, maybe, they were turned into water and carbon. Hear me out: Water gets back in the soil, and I mean real water, not the poison water that's coming from the oceans and lakes. Then there's the carbon in the bodies that, when the skin breaks down, will start to fertilize the soil. Plants will come back, and start sucking the shit out of the air. It will take a long time, but what they're doing, the Presence, is rebooting the ecosystem… with us as fertilizer." Oliver watched Mikkel as he spoke, a mixture of horror and awe on his features. It was brilliant, but the Presence could not just kill pockets of soldiers for that plan to work. There were too many civilians, too many that could still mess it up. There would need to be a wholesale eradication of humanity for that simple of a plan to work.

 

"That means…" Oliver started, still shocked over his newfound realization. Mikkel nodded slowly.

 

"Means that anywhere, now, has a zero-percent survival rate." Mikkel stood straight and holstered his gun, walking with no fear toward the gates. They were open, and it would be no trouble to get inside. Mikkel no longer paid any mind to the bodies they had to step over as they moved, but Oliver did.

 

Inside the city looked no better than outside of it. People were dead on the streets, hanging out of doors, and on the floors of houses. Water darkened the asphalt around their bodies, and it all appeared identical to the other deaths at the base except for one thing: Not everyone was dead.

 

"There are people still alive," Oliver whispered to Mikkel who scanned the scene even as they walked. "How are people still alive?" Mikkel did not know the answer, and so supplied none. Instead he kept moving, kept looking, until one woman caught his attention. She did not hover over a corpse, did not pull on a body, begging it to wake. She also did not appear desperately searching, wandering as if in a daze, shouting out the names of missing loved ones. Moving quickly to her, Mikkel stopped over that crying woman who sat on a curb, and touched her shoulder gently.

 

" _What happened here?_ " He asked her, and she looked up with surprise and desperation. She tried to speak once before she found her voice, and then it came out shaky and unsure. Mikkel knew she would not be credible, but he needed to hear what she knew anyway. She claimed she had been inside, and that she had then heard screaming. She had rushed upstairs from the basement just in time to see everyone drop dead on the street. Some more prodding had her recalling that they were all looking at the sky when they dropped dead, but she had not seen at what. She had run outside then, but there had been nothing in the orange sky to draw everyone’s attention. She broke down at the end, blabbering that her children had been out somewhere, that she did not know where and had looked all over for them. She clung to Mikkel and begged him to find them, to know, magically where they were. Carefully, Mikkel dislodged her from his leg, dropping her back to the ground. He knew he could be of no help to the woman, and was just far enough removed to not even offer assistance. Everyone she loved was probably dead, but questions about how she was still alive made his mind race.

 

"She did not die because she was in the basement," Oliver deduced after they had moved away from the sobbing and begging woman. It was obvious that he felt bad for her, at least a little, but Oliver also seemed to know enough not to try and help her. She was one of thousands and there was no way they could give any of them a happy ending to their woes. Mikkel felt dirty over it, but he knew his own self-image paled in importance to getting Oliver somewhere safe. "Just like that guy Sinclair, and us. We were all inside so they could not kill him."

 

"I know," Mikkel replied stoically, looking up and down the main road. There were thousands of bodies, but only a dozen or so living people on that street. That meant either survivors were displaced elsewhere, or the fact that the Presence had shown itself had lured out most people. Either way, there would be no way to get the word out to everyone that there could be a chance of their survival if they abandoned the bodies of their loved ones and hid in any windowless room they could. All channels of communication were run by the American Government, TV or otherwise, and any attempt to get into them would ping any living soldiers to their location. He would tip them off on how to save themselves as much as he would inform civilians. No, the hatred still ran deep, and if Mikkel had to see everyone die to get his revenge, it was what he would do. After all, the Presence was willing to complete Mikkel’s mission for him, and that was not something he would pass up.

 

"We need to get you somewhere deep. A bunker or something." Mikkel said calmly as they moved around bodies and down the street. Oliver's eyes went wide before they carefully narrowed, glaring at Mikkel.

 

"You do not plan on coming too, do you?" Mikkel did not answer right away, and he knew that, in and of itself, was confirming. Oliver knew another version of him, and the way the boy could read him from the start had meant that the two instances of Mikkel were not too far off from each other.

 

"I'm a bad man, Oliver," Mikkel began, moving with purpose, hoping to stumble upon a place that would provide Oliver with the protection that Mikkel hoped would spare his life. "I've never really wanted to stay alive after everything I've done, except for revenge. There would be no place in a new world for me."

 

"And I am not even supposed to be here, so why would you think there would be a place for me either?" Oliver shot back, and Mikkel narrowed his gaze to match Oliver's stare. This had been the part that Mikkel had told himself was nonnegotiable. He had wanted Oliver safe, the Presence had wanted Oliver safe for some reason. They wanted him to survive everything and maybe even thrive, but the younger man had been right. He would have just as little place in a world devoid of others as Mikkel would have. He would not survive when he had to forage and hunt food that would not be there.

 

"They would hunt me down if I stayed with you, Oliver," Mikkel said with no grounds to the claim. "The Presence knows I'm the worst there is, the worst that they haven't killed yet, and that I would ruin this place again, even if I didn't want to. I'd be a soldier with no battle left to fight. I would make one, just to feel whole again. If I don't die now, then all of these innocent deaths would be in vain." The glare had slowly melted off of Oliver's face, turning into pleading eyes and a slow realization that he had no argument to change how Mikkel felt about himself. He knew what he would have to do; even it appeared to be the worst idea ever.

 

"I am not leaving you then," Oliver said, stronger than he felt, as he marched down the street, head held high in defiance. Mikkel argued with him about that idea, but the nail in the coffin, the one that made Mikkel almost reel and sputter, was when Oliver told him "My life just would not be worth it without you, Mikkel-- Whichever version of you there is. You do not feel the same, I know, but you are my best friend, and I really would not want to keep on going without you, in any situation. So, if we are going to die, we are going to do it together."


	15. In This Twilight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 15 Warnings: Character Deaths, Gore, Language, Mentions of: Drug Use**
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> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possession)  
> Song for Chapter 15 In This Twilight: [Higher Than You Think - Something For Kate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADsQxML3kP4)

There were still people in Stockholm, though not a substantial amount. There had been people indoors, in theaters, in offices, in parking garages, and they had been spared the gruesome death of their fellow civilians, and yet still felt the effects. It seemed almost like everyone had lost a part of himself or herself in the attack, a part that gave them aim and purpose. They wander lost down the streets, cars abandoned once they realized that they could not go anywhere in them without eventually finding corpses in their way. Instead they flocked from their dark, windowless safety to the streets, attempting to decipher what had happened. Many did not care about the cause, it seemed, as they shuffled in the dirt. They did not even seem to mind the heat of the post-midday sun burning up the atmosphere as they turned over bodies, attempting to find those that they looked for. Some bodies turned to dust as they were handled, decomposing faster than was logical, leaving piles of soot that would never be identified-- Leaving people that would never know if their loved ones were dead or not.

 

Oliver watched them shamble about, corpse to corpse, from his perch just inside the door of a store. They looked like zombies, he thought, with dead eyes that scanned slowly and deliberately, and they were intriguing so long as they kept their distance. The civilians did keep their distance since the store Oliver and Mikkel stood in appeared to have no corpses surrounding it. It was for the best because Mikkel had been busy. He had broken into the store and turned on a TV, flipping furiously to find a station still broadcasting. He wanted to see the news to find out what the Government was saying about the attack. At least, if the Government had not released any sort of statement, he could find out what the news crews said about it.

 

Oliver pointedly had not been watching, eyes on the door in what almost could have been described as weary wonderment, but when Mikkel found a channel, Oliver turned to him suddenly.

 

"They look broken," He said, and it did not come out sad. Oliver, for some reason, seemed to lack any emotion in his tone, which Mikkel picked up on right away.

 

"They're just confused. Most people are spoon-fed, are used to the same thing day in and day out. Usually they have the Government telling them that everything will be okay, soldiers directing them to where they should be. Right now, they're adrift, and free will is a scary thing when it's been a long time since you've felt it." Mikkel gestured to the TV as he finished speaking, directing Oliver's attention to it. Oliver seemed lost as well, Mikkel thought. He seemed disassociated from everything except from direct stimuli, and it was something he knew he should have worried about. It had not been that long since he had broken Oliver out of that base, not horribly long since he had had the drugs pushed into his system, so they were probably still working. Mikkel could not honestly remember his own initial transformation from civilian to soldier because there had been walls that the Government had built in his mind. He had been made to forget all about it in order to protect the Government from him, and so they were solid and would not easily fall. He assumed Oliver felt the same.

 

The television screen held a young woman, blonde, pretty, but she looked distressed. There had not been a chance for ad-libbing in a long time in her profession, so her words came jumbled, slow, and stuttering. There had been an attack, one that they knew little about. No one seemed to have seen anything, or at least no one still alive, and that gave credit to Mikkel's theory. The newscaster did not have much to go on, so she simply repeated things over and over. There was an attack, though no one knew what it was. There had been an attack, may god and the Government help them.

 

Mikkel shifted his view to Oliver, observing the younger man. He had seemed wiling to die, to stand along Mikkel and face the terrible end regardless of how it came, but courage like that, when mixed with time, often destroyed itself. There was still time, Mikkel knew. He could still find that deep underground bunker to throw Oliver in until it all blew past, but the younger man did not look scared in the least. His braveness had shifted to something else, but it seemed not to have fallen apart. Oliver watched the television, watched the woman fight to do her job without a rigid script to follow as terror grasped her heart and held it tight. Oliver watched but did not empathetically take on her nervousness as Mikkel had come to expect. Instead he stood straight, eyes narrowed slightly, and lips drawn in a tight line. He did not appear mad, but calculating. He appeared as a soldier would appear given the crisis, not as a young man very far from home would.

 

"Something isn't right in the Government," Mikkel said slowly, judging Oliver's face as he digested that information. His features did not shift as he thought about Mikkel's words, mind formulating a response to them. Mikkel almost felt like he could see the gears, the cogs turning others as he mulled over the words and all the information around him.

 

"They would have already had something for the anchors to read if there was not something wrong, would they not have?" He asked, and Mikkel fought back the frown on his own face. Oliver slowly shifted his gaze to him, and Mikkel saw what he feared. There was no glow in his eyes, nor any curiosity or fear that had been there the whole time. Actually there was nothing in Oliver's eyes at all. He simply looked and took in information, letting none out unwillingly. Mikkel's hand twitched to his gun, instinct rather than a conscious choice. Oliver was a soldier, or at least damn close to one, and therefore would need to be put down. However, Mikkel stilled his hand as rational thought about the situation took over. It was just a phase, he thought, one that would pass as the drugs got out of Oliver’s system. It would take Oliver longer to get over the effects since he had not built up a tolerance, would take him longer to have passed the Parepin, the Prozira, and the Opal from his body than it would have for Mikkel. He would just need to be watched until then. Maybe, he thought, the Presence would get them before Oliver would have to feel the soul-crushing weight of detox.

 

"Yeah, they would already have a cover story, even if they have no idea what's going on. The fact that they don't means that they're in disarray. It means that the Presence did some damn good for once." Mikkel's hand moved from his gun to his hip, eyes purposefully detaching from their watchful gaze at Oliver's face to scan the store. There would be nothing that they would need, nothing that they could use on their final day, but it was better than staring at Oliver and wondering about him.

 

"They killed civilians too," Oliver commented back, but there was no ire in it. It was simply fact, monotone and wholly unlike him. Mikkel's hand twitched again toward his pistol, but he willed it back. It would pass, Mikkel reminded himself. It would pass eventually.

 

"They already told us they would kill indiscriminately, and these people did not listen. You can feel bad for them, Oliver, but you cannot really fault the Presence for that. At least they got the warning, unlike we did when America stormed in and started killing people. At least they had a chance for salvation." Mikkel had turned again, watching the back of Oliver's head as he spoke to him. He had not wanted to turn, but something told him to, something told him to watch the younger man and see what he did. Mikkel did not know if it was his own paranoia or the Presence that demand he do so, but he was glad he had. Oliver slowly looked over his shoulder and back at Mikkel. His eyes were red-rimmed, darker, completely different than they had been only moments before, and yet strangely similar. It was the peak of the drugs, Mikkel reasoned. It would be all down hill from there, but as he looked at the younger man stare back at him, he noticed something. Where he had thought there was nothing there but the effects of the soldier education, the drugs burying Oliver so deep that he would never come out, there was a glimpse of him. There was regret there, solicitude even, and it was entirely unfamiliar to Mikkel. It had been a long time since he had seen anyone with a look of compassion, and even longer since he had seen that look directed toward himself. Oliver was still under there somewhere, Mikkel knew for certain, just trying to keep his head above the water.

 

"We should go before they get reorganized," Oliver said in that slow and monotone way that put Mikkel on edge, but he knew Oliver was right. He was functioning like a soldier, functioning with reason instead of emotion, and for right then, Mikkel could use that. He needed someone with a level head by his side, and though he wished that Oliver had never had to feel the drugs, he was willing to let it work for him.

 

"Come on then," Mikkel told him, and lead Oliver out onto the streets once more.

 

Oliver had been animate previously about dying along side Mikkel, had thought that that would have been the just thing to do, but with his sudden transformation into the soldier once more, exactly as he had when Sinclair held a gun to his head, Mikkel could not be sure if that really had been his choice at all. So, as they moved down the streets, Mikkel kept his eyes open for somewhere that Oliver could possibly survive the Presence's eradication of humanity.

 

Stockholm had basements, had subbasements, and it did have a few bomb shelters that Mikkel knew of. Still, the safest place he could think of was the Molious base, the Founder's base specifically, and unless he could locate another spot with less dead and decaying corpses in it, and less chance of strife between civilians as a bomb shelter would hold, he would shove Oliver down there and find a way to keep him inside. Mikkel knew he had no right to force the younger man to die at his side, and no right to even accept Oliver's decision because it was ill informed and down right suicidal. Oliver did not deserve that, and his allegiance to Mikkel was woefully misplaced. Sure, Mikkel had saved him, saved him a few times, but he never would have done so without the pushes from Maria and the Presence. He never would have stuck his neck out for the kid if he had not been forced to, and because of that he felt bad for Oliver to want to die by his side. Still he said nothing, not entirely sure how the soldier version of Oliver would react to that information, to Mikkel’s hesitation. Things could have gotten confused in Oliver’s mind, and he could think Mikkel a threat and kill him. He also could possibly snap out of his sudden emotionless state with the sadness he would feel over Mikkel not considering him a friend, just a mission. However it was not something he was willing to chance. Oliver was broken, and until he repaired himself, there would be no point in pilling more things onto his shoulders.

 

Mikkel wanted to concentrate on something other than Oliver, so he made a point to pay more attention to his surroundings. He looked at the buildings, looked at the dead and living civilians, and watched the way a slight breeze blew the dirt around the streets. He watched his world die and he wondered if anyone knew it was their last day. Eventually Mikkel looked to the sky, to where the sun lit up the pollution and cast an orange glow over everything. It had been blue once, he vaguely remembered. It had been clean with white clouds once, but that was so far away, and more of a dream than an actual memory. There had been a time, he thought, when they could actually see the sun rise and set on the horizons.

 

The sun, Mikkel thought, had been in the sky for a long time. Not in eons or any extension past his own life, but on that day. It had been in the sky for a long time, longer than that time a year would have allowed it, and showed no signs of getting closer to the horizon. It seemed to know that when it set, when it stopped lighting up their part of the world that the purge would begin. It wanted to buy them more time, wanted them to figure out some way to stop it all, some way to save them, but time was finite, even if the sun dragged it out hours longer than normal. Right then, Mikkel reasoned, there were parts of the world shrouded in darkness. He thought about them, the countries, occupied lands that were in the inky blackness of night. He wondered if the Presence had already started with them, had already begun picking off people in the darkness. Australia would have been devoid of life, he reasoned. A portion of Asia decimated for their crimes against the Earth. He wondered if the sun had bought them more time as well, or if it had just passed them over as normal.

 

"I need to know what to do," Mikkel spoke quietly. It should have been internalized, he knew, but he wanted to ask everything. He wanted to ask the sun, or the Presence, or even himself, what he needed to do right then, because he was at a total loss.

 

"We need to get to higher ground," Oliver said suddenly, and Mikkel had almost forgotten that he was there. He had been so quiet, so still even as they moved. He had always had Oliver's awkward fumbling, nervous need to talk, to remind him that he was there, but he had paced his foot steps with Mikkel's and had almost fallen off of the older man's radar entirely. Of course when he spoke Mikkel felt foolish for not remembering he was there and slowed, turning to look at Oliver. Easily the younger man met his gaze, eyes still shadowed and not entirely his own. He was in there, Mikkel remembered, but he was under. He was under the drugs. However, something caught in Oliver's eyes, something that stuck there for several seconds, almost taunting Mikkel to figure out what it was. When he did, his face fell heavily into a frown.

 

"How long have you been in there?" He asked, solemn and not just a little pissed. Oliver did not smile; just kept the same steady gaze he had held for some time now.

 

"Since you freed him. We tried to leave him on his own, but it had become obvious to us that he could not be. He was breaking, and that would not work for us. We did not crush the boy, but humanity did, which just further shows how uncontrollable you are. One chance for salvation and you almost kill it. We hope you understand we are saving you from yourselves." The words were spoken in Oliver's voice, leaving Oliver's mouth that formed the sounds easily, but they were not his own. They were the Presence's words coming from Oliver, their savior it seemed.

 

“There’s no way in hell you were there the whole time,” Mikkel said defiantly, furious at the Presence’s seeming accusation toward his version of saving Oliver. “He was himself, not this strange pseudo-person you are.”

 

“But he was not always himself, was he, Mikkel Boedker?” There was no quip in the tone of the response, no hidden amusement to indicate that the Presence was having fun with him. Mikkel thought back, thought back to instances where Oliver may not have been quite himself since being broken out of the soldier education. One stuck firmly in his mind and made Mikkel frown heavily.

 

“Sinclair…” He began, a hint of a question in his tone, which was confirmed by a stiff nod of Oliver’s head. “That wasn’t the drugs, was it?”

 

“That was a gift, one anticipated by us. Of course we did not mean for Oliver Ekman-Larsson to be so close to it, the darkness in you, but it worked to your advantage, did it not? You received the greatest vengeance you could want on the man you blame for all of your suffering.” Mikkel frowned heavily at the almost whimsical nature in which the presence relayed that information. It was not a change in tone that made Mikkel think that they were very happy that Mikkel had killed Sinclair and received some ounce of peace from it, but more of a feeling. He narrowed his gaze at Oliver.

 

“And there were more times?” Again Oliver nodded in response.

 

“Several. Any time we felt he was slipping away, any time he seemed to lose conviction about his mission or you, we needed to step in. If there was another way, Mikkel Boedker, I assure you, we would have done it. Unfortunately, there were none.”

 

"Fine. Fine, we’ll play with your mystic crap on that front, but I went and got him. I went and just like I promised. I got him out of that shit hole, got him away from the Government's needles and probing. So I think it's about time you tell me what it's all for. I think you should tell me exactly why you need him." Mikkel was pissed, tone attempting to stay level but failing to do so entirely. He wanted the Presence to know that he was mad, but he doubted that he would need to scream in order to get that across.

 

At first no response came from Oliver. It seemed as if the Presence inside the younger man was thinking, but Mikkel had a feeling that that was not the case. It knew how to answer the question, it knew it would answer the question, but it searched for something. It searched for something to calm Mikkel, and it found it when it made Oliver slowly smile.

 

"We need him to save humanity," The Presence told him, Oliver's smile there but it felt fake to Mikkel. It was like a puppet smiling, the body not actually feeling the emotion and yet trying to make others feel it. Mikkel did not fall for the show, narrowing his eyes as his hand slipped to his side arm. He would use Oliver as a hostage if the Presence did not give him a straight answer for once. Slowly Oliver's smile folded down into a frown, eyes hard as they looked at Mikkel.

 

"We are giving you the illusion of free will, Mikkel Boedker, and we request you do not abuse it. If we need to, we will destroy you, though we would like it not to come to that." Mikkel had no problem remembering that the Presence had taken over him as well, and he had no doubt that they would make good on that threat if Oliver meant so much to them.

 

"Then please just answer my question and tell me exactly what you need him for. No smoke and mirrors, no more mystic crap. Just tell me plain and simple, or I will make you destroy me. Remember, I'm not afraid to die." The Presence, for once, seemed not to have an immediate response. The frown on Oliver's face stayed deep, but his eyes appeared searching, wondering what Mikkel wanted to hear. They could just read his mind, Mikkel reasoned, but he figured they were quite busy with other things as well, like destroying all of humanity for instance.

 

"I promise you that we require him to save humanity."

 

"Humanity that you've already killed ninety-percent of?" Mikkel asked audaciously, voice finally rising in volume as he screamed at Oliver's form. He did not recoil, did not advert his eyes, as Mikkel knew Oliver would have. Instead he kept the same dead-eyed stare directly on Mikkel.

 

"We have only eliminated point-zero-zero-zero-zero-three-percent of humanity, Mikkel Boedker, across every universe. We have only eliminated those beyond repair, those that have failed to coexist with not only each other, but with every other living thing in their particular universe." Mikkel's anger fell into confusion, unsure if his mind had just translated it wrong, or if the Presence really made no sense. If the Presence had only killed people in and around Stockholm, then Mikkel could reason that they may have only killed a small portion of humanity, but they seemed to be an all or nothing deal. They seemed not to be the type of entity to just pick and chose their targets, especially after the general warning it had sent out. It had inferred more humans, more than were just on Earth at that moment, and Mikkel pondered on that as the Presence continued to speak. "Every time we make one, one that would go and offer survival to another universe, one that sits upon the brink. We have made millions, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson had been chosen as one. Oliver Ekman-Larsson will attempt to succeed where the one in your universe has failed, and that is why we need him. We need him to show others the selfish suicide of humanity in another time and place, one that has yet to cross the threshold as your humanity has." Mikkel could only stare at the face of Oliver, the one that held the Presence just below the surface. Oliver was not their weapon, was not their end game move. He was not even the savior of humanity in Mikkel's world. What he was was a prophet for another: another time and universe where humanity pushed against the edges of extinction.

 

"He… he's going to be your first warning?" Mikkel asked slowly, not entirely grasping the Presence's plan, but not entirely missing it either. Slowly Oliver nodded, though his eyes never left Mikkel's face. The older man shifted, hand going to his hip, though not for his gun, as he ran his other hand down his face, scratching across his long ignored beard. He looked around, looked at the bodies of the dead, and the equally distant living. He watched the destruction, and it all came into place.

 

"You do not all die, Mikkel Boedker. You do not all get slaughtered and forgotten as you so thought. Some of you, a few of you, get to live on and continue to try and complete your mission of salvation, but in a new vessel. You were chosen to be one of those, the other half of this one, because of your strength and compassion. You were chosen because there was already a connection from him, and though you could not feel it, there had been a connection from you since the first time he spoke your name. You wanted to save the world, Mikkel Boedker, and though your mission has failed here, we offer you the chance to complete it in another universe." The Presence fell silent again, as if waiting for Mikkel's decision, but none came. Mikkel felt lost in thought, lost in everything he had been told. It seemed entirely insane, entirely beyond reason. Maybe, he thought, he had never woken up from the overdose after he had blown the ballpark. Maybe, he thought, he had never escaped from the Government those years prior, but he could feel the heat on his brow, could smell the dead Earth all around him. He could hear the sobs of the living, and that made him believe that he was still alive. Those things made him feel like the Presence really meant it all.

 

"What should I do?" Mikkel asked slowly, cautiously. The Presence had let Oliver's face fall back to neutral, just watching, calculating, as Mikkel's reaction slowly panned out.

 

"If you wish to help, if you wish to save this boy and let him save others, then you will find higher ground and you will wait. If you wish to throw our gift back at us, then you will shoot the boy and doom others. We will give you your free will back, Mikkel Boedker, because we have faith. We have faith that humanity will, eventually, make the right decisions. We have faith that you, right now, will do the same." It was not Oliver that came back to him, no slow parting as the Presence left the situation. It would have been hard to shoot Oliver, Mikkel knew, if he was himself. It would have been a good play by the Presence to make him face that, knowing that he would not pull the trigger if Oliver were wholly himself. However, as the Presence had promised, there was no trick. Mikkel could shoot Oliver dead and the younger man would never have to feel it, never have to see it coming. Mikkel could kill him and feel no remorse because Oliver would never know he had done it, but yet he still could not. His hand stalled on the grip of his pistol, unable and unwilling to unholster it. There were several tense seconds as Mikkel stared into Oliver's eyes, stared into them as if he could see the Presence below them. Finally the moment broke, and Mikkel removed his hand from the pistol.

 

"Fine, higher ground. But… tell me, am I going to die when this is all done?" Oliver nodded slowly, face still neutral in expression. It was not Oliver, Mikkel reminded himself. It was merely a puppet. "And is Oliver going to die?" Again Oliver's head bobbed in the affirmative and Mikkel scoffed, turning away from the Presence in frustration. Oliver, their prophet, was going to die. That seemed unfair and even cruel, but Mikkel realized that the Presence had a plan, one that was precise and was going to be seen to completion.

 

"How the hell do you tell someone that by the end of the day they will be dead? How do you tell someone that they failed and that everyone will be dead because of them?" Mikkel wondered spitefully, hating the Presence for ever getting him involved. He would rather have died a free man, one that made his own decisions and found a bullet in his brain some day. He would have never have had to be mixed up in Oliver and whatever salvation crap the Presence had wanted from him.

 

"You will tell Oliver Ekman-Larsson nothing. At the point in which he must know, he will know." Mikkel could see something when he turned back to look at Oliver. The Presence was still there, still keeping Oliver's face unnervingly neutral, still keeping his eyes hard and direct, but there were tears. There were small drops that only wet Oliver's lashes and the bags under his eyes. They were the only sign that Oliver was still in there and that he still felt something. "He, nor you, have failed anything in this mission, Mikkel Boedker, and so long as you continue to listen, continue to not allow your negative emotions to rule over you, you will complete it and feel peace for the first time in your life." It felt like a tall prize, steep given all Mikkel had done to bring about the end of humanity. He would argue that point, however, when the Presence came to deliver it. He would animatedly deny the gift of peace, wanting only the crippling despair that the other's felt upon their death.

 

"Are you going to give him back to me now?" Mikkel asked slowly, gesturing to Oliver's body. The Presence smiled, a wide genuine smile that spread entirely across Oliver's face, even to his eyes that remained dark and deep.

 

"We shall, but he will be damaged. This is not our fault, nor his, but the fault of the others that did not redeem themselves. Be careful with him for in this state, while so close to fulfilling his own mission, he will be fragile." Mikkel nodded, a shallow bob of his head that was stiff and unsure. The Presence watched him for several seconds, tense ones that Mikkel felt growing impatience over. They had a deal, one Mikkel would stick by, apparently for Oliver's sake, and yet the Presence still hesitated. As frustration mounted, Mikkel opened his mouth to speak. However, before any words formed, Oliver blinked, and when his eyes opened, he was back.

 

The blink had forced the tears down Oliver's cheeks, and he simply stood, dumbfounded and staring at Mikkel. He shifted, took a step back, and fell. There had been a corpse behind Oliver, one that he tripped over as he moved, and when he fell he landed on more. Mikkel had not counted, had not wanted to know how many people had died on that spot, but Oliver had fallen on more than a few of them. They turned to dust as he hit them, pluming up in a cloud that drifted into the air and clung to Oliver. The younger man did not blink still as he stared at Mikkel, but he shook visibly.

 

"I…" Oliver began, but it had no follow up as his bottom lip quivered much like the rest of his form. He looked broken, just as the Presence had said he was, fragile and ready to shatter beyond repair at any second. Mikkel had thought he would know what to do, how to pull Oliver back together and get them on their way, but when faced with it, he realized he had no idea.

 

"Oliver," He started slowly, shifting closer before squatting down. Oliver did not move away, but his eyes showed rejection, showed vexation, and Mikkel, for a second, thought it was toward him. He thought that maybe the Presence had double-crossed him, had shown Oliver just how black his heart was, and had turned the younger man against him. Oliver's words, however, showed that the emotions were not toward Mikkel, but toward himself.

 

"They're... They're dead, Mikkel," Oliver said quietly, voice shaking just as his body did. "They're dead because… because I couldn't save them. They… they wanted me to save them and I couldn't, Mikkel." Oliver looked like a scared child and an utterly defeated man all at the same time. He felt as if he had failed the world, that he had failed himself and his loved ones, wherever they were. He spiraled down, wanted the darkness back, wanted to dip back into the black pool where he had felt safe, but Mikkel was there and had no intention of letting him feel any more false solace.

 

"Oliver, we need to go," He said quietly, reaching for the younger man. Oliver recoiled instantly, pulling back and away from Mikkel, kicking up more corpse dust as he did so. He rolled on his side, tucked himself as small as he could, and howled in fright and despair.

 

"I want to die!" He screamed, and Mikkel pulled back as well, shock on his features. He had not expected that, had not expected Oliver's complete disconnect from him, but he had also assumed it would not be that easy. Oliver was complex, different, and eternally frustrating compared to Mikkel, but in those moments, when Oliver howled to be left there to die, Mikkel knew the fondness he felt for the younger man was entirely his own.

 

"Oliver," He started again slowly, no annoyance in his tone. "You don't want to die." It was a fact, and it was simple. It was something small that Mikkel hoped Oliver would latch onto and know to be truth. The shaking of the young man settled a little, his fetal position protecting him from anything he deemed to be a threat.

 

"They're dead because I couldn't save them," Oliver said weakly several seconds later, and though Mikkel wanted to feel annoyed, wanted to feel like Oliver was acting like a child, he could still only feel fondness and a bit of pity.

 

"They're dead, Oliver, because they shouldn't have been saved." Mikkel let that sink into the younger man, watched his shaking still entirely and his head shift, eyes slowly, cautiously, finding Mikkel's. "You were never supposed to save them, Oliver." Mikkel continued still gently, just watching and no longer approaching the younger man.

 

"You don't know that," Oliver said defiantly, though still meekly, voice still tight and unsure. Mikkel felt himself smile, and it was not exactly right. It had been a long time since he had smiled, even longer since he had smiled fondly at someone, but despite the imperfections, it felt right. It felt reassuring and perfect to smile at Oliver.

 

"I do know that, Oliver. You know why?" Slowly Oliver shook his head, just a little, still guarded and removed. He did not know why, and Mikkel was not entirely sure he knew why either, but he thought he did, and it was still not the Presence that spoke out of his mouth, keeping its promise of free will. "I know that because they would have been too easy to save. All they would have needed was to hear you talk about the sky, about the oceans, about where you came from and they would have been saved by you. Instead they didn't want to listen to you. Instead the Government didn't want you to save them, and you had to save someone, so you decided to save the hardest person in the world to save." Oliver's brows creased as Mikkel spoke, not entirely sure what Mikkel was striving toward. He did not want to ask, so he simply stared at Mikkel until the man offered up the answer.

 

"You saved me, Oliver, and that means that you will never have to struggle saving anyone else ever again. No one, no one anywhere, will be as hard to save as I was." Oliver did not smile at the self-deprivation from Mikkel, did not uncurl himself and accept Mikkel's words as truth, but his eyes did lighten a bit. He was curious, he was in that moment with Mikkel, and the older man knew it was the moment where he could either save Oliver in return, or crush him. "If I hadn't been so stubborn, Oliver, you would have saved them. So, in return, let me save you." Carefully Mikkel stood and extended his hand out to Oliver.

 

There were several tense seconds where Oliver did not come out of his self-hatred, did not uncurl and accept Mikkel's help, but when he did, it was with a small smile on his face. Mikkel did not know what the Presence had told Oliver, did not know if it had gone entirely, but Oliver, the real Oliver, had accepted his proposition, and that was all Mikkel cared about. He took the younger man's hand and helped him to his feet, letting Oliver dust the corpses from his clothes for several moments of introspection, before gaining his attention once more.

 

"We don't have a lot of time left, Oliver," He said softly and Oliver looked up to meet his eyes. Carefully he stood more, extended himself to his full height and looked around, up and down the street.

 

"Where are we going?" He asked cautiously. Mikkel obviously had a plan, and though Oliver trusted him, he was unsure if he would follow him. Mikkel had been a mystery to him for the entirety of his time in that universe, and though the man promised to save him, Oliver still felt hesitant to allow him to.

 

"We're going to find a nice high roof, Oliver. And then we are going to watch the end." Oliver visibly relaxed, the tenseness leaking from his body. He had thought, had honestly believed that Mikkel would shove him in a bunker. That he would make Oliver survive, give anything to make sure that happened. He had been unsure if the older man understood the difference between survival and salvation, but he seemed to have gotten it, and Oliver was thankful.

 

"I realized, Oliver, that there is no sense in cowering. You and I don't do that, not anymore. We're going to stare death in the eye, Oliver, and tell him to go fuck himself." Slowly Oliver smiled wider, brighter, and nodded to Mikkel, though it never quite reached his eyes. That, Oliver knew, was exactly what he wanted, and though scared, he knew it was the best choice for him.


	16. Zero-Sum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 16 Warnings: Character Deaths
> 
>  
> 
> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
> 
> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possession)  
> Song for Chapter 16 Zero-Sum: [Between Rupture and Rapture - Thursday](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwYkRDuNCVk)

The glow from the sun had disappeared some hours ago. There seemed to have been several extra hours of light that Mikkel could not prove existed, ones that dragged on and on, allowing them to maneuver about the city without fear for the perceived deadline of night. According to his watch, however, the sun had set at approximately the proper time and had not given them any extra hours before their inevitable deaths. Still facts did not cause Mikkel to believe that it had not tried to. He thought and believed many things as he and Oliver sat in the black of night, waiting. Below them, in lower buildings, there were lights on. There were not many, but some from whatever survivors managed to dodge death the day previous, escorted back to their houses by what remained of the police and soldiers. There should have been no reason to know what Mikkel did, the Presence never having told him, but he was certain no amount of cement or earth between those people and the sky would keep them safe from the final purge of humanity that night. At least, Mikkel reasoned, he had a prime seat for his own death.

 

The rooftop gave them a vantage of a section of the city that was excellent, and, despite a few blind spots from taller much more locked down buildings, he would not miss a thing. He would see how their personal stories were to end with minimal interference. Oliver had refused repeatedly and animatedly to go anywhere without Mikkel, especially to safety. Oliver wanted to die with the rest of humanity, and Mikkel knew that that was not the Presence’s decision. That was one choice that the translucent gods, or whatever they were, had not made for Oliver. That was one that stemmed entirely from Oliver’s personality and way of coping. He did not think he was above the rest of humanity as Sinclair had, did not think he was lower than humanity as Mikkel did. Instead Oliver just considered himself one of them, one directly in the middle of the flock. Mikkel wondered absently if that had been one of the criteria that the Presence looked for when choosing their prophets or saviors, or whatever it was that Oliver was to them. There was no way to know without the Presence telling him directly, but it seemed as if they were officially gone. There was no strange tingle at the edges of Mikkel’s consciousness that told him otherwise. They wanted Mikkel to take Oliver somewhere high, somewhere where they rose above everyone else, and Oliver wanted that too. Oliver wanted to watch the end just as Mikkel did and, for the first time in a long time, Mikkel had the desire to not be alone.

 

It was not very late into the night when the end began. It started with swirls in the clouds, barely noticeable since there was very little light pollution that night, but they were there nonetheless. They looked like the start of tornados; twelve of them that Mikkel could count from sight. They had not gone unnoticed by Oliver either, and it reminded the younger man strangely of the Wizard of OZ. He let himself fantasize, for just a fraction of a second, that they could maybe take him home. He could possibly get sucked up in them like Dorthy, twist in the air as they pulled him along and eventually to his home again. Logic overruled wishful thinking, however, and he knew that they were far more likely to bring his death as it seemed was promised. He still never fully got on board with the idea that he would be spared; regardless of if Mikkel thought he was the only innocent person in the world. There seemed to be no discrimination to how the Presence worked, and that gave Oliver little solace.

 

Neither man spoke as the clouds pulled open, tore away from each other to make gaping holes where the Presence reached down. They glowed otherworldly, a beautiful and terrifying blue. No, not blue, but aqua that seemed to shimmer in its translucence. The first time both men had seen them it had been with terror, an agony for Mikkel that reached into the depths of his soul and seemed to mangle it worse than any corporal torture could, than even the Berserker rage had. To Oliver it had been the fear of those around them that turned the awesome sight sour and evil. He had not understood before, but right then, sitting on the roof of a slightly structurally compromised apartment building, they both saw beauty.

 

"Are those stars?" Mikkel asked, voice barely above a whisper in the silence of the night as he stood. Oliver chanced a glance over at the familiar face of his foreign companion as he too got to his feet. He held tones of Oliver's Mikkel in the quaking awe of his voice, looked slightly like him with the wide-eyed and stunned stare he deployed. He had never once considered that the older man would never have seen the night sky through the smog of the dying world. He never imagined anyone would not know what stars looked like. Oliver took a step closer, bumping their shoulders together as he pointed toward the stars that hung glittering through the aqua haze of the Presence.

 

"Those, right there, the ones that make a box and then the two off it? That's Ursa Major. Supposed to be a bear, but looks more like a spoon. We call it the Big Dipper. Cool, right?" Neither of them had to speak loud as Oliver named off the very few constellations they could see, and the ones he knew which were rudimentary at best. Mikkel watched with rapt fascination, like a child discovering some magic that nature held. It was all accentuated by Oliver's helping hand and seemingly otherworldly knowledge of it. Mikkel knew many things, things about guns, tactics, and drugs. He knew how to hide in plain sight, knew how to run long distances without fatigue. He did not, however, know about the simple and yet stunning beauty nature held that Oliver seemed to know about. He was going to die soon, Mikkel knew. They would both die soon, and for once he had something to live for that was not just revenge. He wanted to know about the beauty that Oliver knew. He wanted to feel friendship, companionship, even love again. He did not want to die when there was so much Oliver could still teach him, and he wished that he had let the boy do so when they still had time.

 

It seemed like hours that the hands slowly descended toward the Earth, but the stars did not move-- explored ones did not shift from view nor new ones shift to take their place. A glance at Mikkel's watch showed that they had only been seeing the glimmering specks for thirty seconds, but he knew Oliver had been telling him about the night sky for much longer than that. Time, it seemed, was finally on his side. Time finally agreed that Mikkel had not done everything he needed to, and was trying to give him a chance to remedy that.

 

"Did you ever look at the stars with the other version of me?" Mikkel asked in a hushed tone when they had lulled into a strangely comfortable silence. Their time was running out, they would be dead at any moment, but there was a peace in it that Mikkel had never known nor thought existed. The Presence had promised him that, and though Mikkel wanted to shout up at them, shout to the translucent forms reaching down that he did not deserve a calm soul, he could not work up the anger. He could not be mad, and it was a freeing feeling. Oliver's gaze slowly shifted to him from where he watched the stars, and though Mikkel refused to look away from the sight of the stars, he knew the exact look the younger man had on his features. It was serene and yet confused, brows creased slightly.

 

"No… That's not really…" Oliver would have said that it was not exactly a normal thing for friends to do. He would have said that even where he was from, where the stars were not something constantly hidden from them, there was still a sense of romance about them. He did not have to explain, however, because Mikkel took over the conversation again. It was not a forceful redaction as Oliver had come to expect, but a slow and easy response, as if Oliver had not needed to explain what he meant.

 

"You should. I don't want there to ever be a reality where I don't get to see them. I'd like that if you could do that for me." He trailed off for a second before he continued slightly quieter. "For us, really." Oliver did not need to ask who the 'us' was in reference to, because he knew Mikkel meant every instance in which he existed. Oliver chewed thoughtfully on his lip for several seconds, or what felt like seconds but was probably milliseconds by the slow lengthening of time, before he spoke.

 

"You know what we have done, though?" He asked, a light chuckle in his voice as he slid his hands into his pockets, shifting from the heels to the balls of his feet and back, rocking slightly. "We played some pranks. Boeds kinda gave me shit for it, teased me, but our teammates deserved it. Put some _Icy-Hot_ in Biz's jock once. Not a lot, but just enough that for practice he wasn't very happy." Mikkel laughed before Oliver even had a chance to explain to him what Icy-Hot was, but for some reason that did not surprise him.

 

"I remember we put hot sauce in someone's ketchup," Mikkel said with a grin on his face, making Oliver laugh louder, the sound echoing across the city.

 

"Yeah, with Summers! Snuck it in Z's food and we put so much in! Don't know how he never smelled it but he ran for a glass of milk!" They both laughed that time, wide grins of youthful delight over pranks well played and those that had been done back at them. However, his joy over the memories slowly faded into confusion for Oliver. They were his memories. They were his and his Mikkel’s memories, not this Mikkel’s. There should have been no way that he knew about them, or even understood them, and yet he did. It should have been odd, how Mikkel knew, how he sensed things that only Oliver should have had recollection of, but Oliver began to feel it too. There were nagging memories that should not have been his, and yet began to surface in his mind nonetheless.

 

"Do you know what ever happened to Sidney?" Oliver asked, after Mikkel had lulled back into silence, eyes still on the glittering stars. The Presence had reached the Earth, hundreds of them that started in the sky and ended on the ground that was well past their line of sight. They were all around them; long aqua arms that promised death, but no sense of dread seeped into either man. Only a sense of completion filled them. Mikkel never did answer, and Oliver did not push. The question had not been meant as rhetorical, but it might as well have been. Mikkel did not know what had happened to his fiancé, and despite some reunion in death, he probably never would. Oliver could feel, however, the pain that came with that question. He could feel Mikkel’s hesitation and slow spiral into the memories that he had tried to bury for so long. He did not know what had happened to the love of his life, but he blamed himself for her probable death all the same.

 

"I wonder, sometimes, what I would have done five years ago if I knew what I know now." Mikkel's words came after another hefty silence. Almost as if it were a great feat, Oliver pulled his eyes from the sky to regard the older man. Mikkel did not smile any more, but he did not look distressed either. He simply looked contemplative. "I wonder if I would have met you and we would have been friends. I mean, not this you, but the other you-- the you that I very well may have killed. The other you that is dead regardless, and probably never got to see the stars." Oliver frowned also, more of a habitual reaction than any portrayal of emotion. Mikkel had also known that Molious had killed him, had hidden it, but that did not make Oliver dislike the older man. It, instead, made him feel closer to him. Mikkel regretted it, regretted the killings. He finally realized that not all the deaths he had orchestrated were for the greater good, and Oliver was glad for that.

 

"But you didn't know," Oliver whispered and Mikkel smiled then, just slightly. He could feel Oliver's reassurance, and that brought about thoughts of Maria. She had considered much on the subject of Oliver, it had seemed. She had written much about him since he had entered their lives, and though that had only been a few days, she had also seemed to know about him beforehand. Maybe, like her, he had not been put there to do anything but what he had done. Maybe he had been the good soldier just for this Oliver, the one that stood with him when they were sure to die and told him about the stars. The Presence had made him feel completely culpable, but maybe he had also been part of the answer. Maybe he was not supposed to save his world, but Oliver's. They had alluded to that, had told him that he was the other half of Oliver, but Mikkel still doubted that. At best, he reasoned, he was just a reminder to Oliver of what he already had. The shared memories, the momentary bond they held while staring death down, was not for them, but for Oliver and the other Mikkel, and Mikkel knew that all at once.

 

"I know now, though, and so do you." Mikkel responded with a sight quiver in his tone. It was not what he wanted to say, not at all what he thought that Oliver needed to know, deserved to know, but it was all that came out. There would be no crying confession, no begging for Oliver not to forget him, to not let Mikkel die in this damned world because that was not right. Mikkel knew he deserved to die, that Oliver deserved to live, and that he had no right to put any more on the younger man. Oliver had not been clear on what Mikkel’s response meant, but he hummed in thought regardless, no longer interested at all in the stars and the arms. Shifting again, Oliver reached out to take Mikkel's hand. Neither of them shook with any fear, no anxiety over their imminent deaths, and both of their pulses beat slow and steady against the other's palm.

 

There had been no way to save this world Mikkel finally let himself realize. It had been far too gone before they had received the first warning. Oliver's appearance had been the beginning of the end for it, and Mikkel had been too slow to see any of it coming. He had been far too caught up in his own tragedies, his own betrayals, to see how lost everything else had become. Maria had told him all about it, about this grand divine plan that she had sensed, and he had ignored her. That seemed to be the only possibility right then, drawing his last moments out to an eternity that stretched and warped in every way except the ones he could see in the three limited dimensions he had always lived in. Something out there, something that at one point or another had probably been ascribed a capital G in front of its name, had given them those last eternal moments to piece it together and solve the puzzle-- the whole image of what was to happen. Mikkel wanted to tell Oliver everything, wanted to make sure he understood what it meant. He wanted Oliver to keep fighting, to save whatever world he went to next because then Mikkel could save it too. He could not speak on the subject, however, unsure if the Presence silenced him, or if his own mind told him that informing Oliver of his fate would have been more detrimental than helpful.

 

Mikkel wondered just when it had been placed in him, all of the pieces to the puzzle that he had been trying to solve all along. He was unsure which things that he had endured were necessary and which had been superfluous. At which point had pure survival changed into divine-seeking? Had he gotten the pieces when he was himself, or the Berseker, or even when he had been controlled by the Presence? Though the questions piled in his mind, though he wondered and fretted, it never became more than just an intellectual exercise. It never broke through the odd calm and the easy rhythm of Oliver's pulse against his palm. They would meet their end soon. They would see the finale that came after the twilight, and he would have earned whatever was to come.

 

"Oliver," Mikkel spoke in the hushed whisper they had shared for the eternal minutes. Oliver’s voice came again in a monotone hum that resembled entirely what Mikkel felt above the thoughts. "Tell me about your world." Oliver cleared his throat, as if he had not spoken in some time. It had been possible, of course, what with how time seemed warped.

 

"Well, we have stars," Oliver began thoughtfully. "And trees, and flowers. I don’t know, what do you want to know?" Mikkel told him that there was nothing specific that he wanted to know, that he just wanted to hear about it. He wanted to hear about the place that had the things that he had not seen or experienced in quite some time, if ever. He just wanted to know what there was in the strange world that let Oliver still be innocent.

 

"People are nice there," Oliver whispered, a light smile on his lips as he thought about the world with his friends, his teammates, his family. "We go out in the summer, and there's the sun out, and we can go swimming in the lakes. And there's snow in the winter. It's really white and there are mountains of it where we clear parking lots and stuff. People play hockey on ponds." Oliver broke off for a moment, a light laugh burbling to his lips as he closed his eyes and imagined his world; very different from the one he was in at that moment. It had been explained to him, in part, of the climate change. About how everywhere was hot and barren, that the rain was toxic and the plants were dead. He wondered if this Mikkel ever saw snow, and something told him that he had not. He tried to picture it as he spoke.

 

"Every year, when we travel, I find one city where it snows, and I always manage to hit Boeds with one snow ball. I get a bunch thrown back at me for it, but I always get him once a year. It's sort of like tradition." He reveled in the memory for several minutes, not sure if Mikkel could feel them in the sort of sixth sense way Oliver had been able to know about Sidney. He wanted to be back there, with Mikkel, with all his friends. He wanted to be on the ice, or lounging around in the sun. He really wanted, though, to not stare death in the face, and to never have had a gun held to his head.

 

"Tell me more about the people, Oliver." Oliver thought about it. He wondered how to sum up the whole of humanity. This Mikkel, the one that stood there waiting for death, seemed to be able to compile everyone into a simple distinction of killers and the dead, but Oliver's world was much less black and white. Oliver's world had trends and anomalies, but so did every person. He first thought to world news, about how people were portrayed as groups, but then he thought about the people he knew and met. He thought about the people he knew most of all: his family, warm and loving, and his friends.

 

"Most of them are nice, Mikkel. Some are bad, they kill people or hurt people, but most of them aren't like that." Oliver tried to think it through, but even those thoughts seemed to be becoming more and more buried under all the stuff going on in his head. There was an inability to focus on one thought, something that shifted and altered his thoughts. It was almost like white noise, the veil over his conscious efforts, but without any actual sound. He wondered if that was what death was, but it did not worry him as much as intrigued him. "Countries hate each other, and people hate each other, but for the most part we're all trying our best. Normal people just try to get along, to live and not bother anyone too much. Some people don't care if they bother people, and others try really hard to bother people, but most people just try to get where they're going and do what they have to do."

 

"Seems nice," Mikkel whispered. Oliver shrugged a little and squeezed Mikkel's hand, trying to figure out exactly what he wanted to say.

 

"Most people just… just go through life, I guess. Blindly. Not trying to do bad or good. It's better than this but it's still…" He had no word for what it was. It was not bad, but more disappointing, almost suboptimal. It seemed more like something was just strangely absent from most of humanity. He had not actually noticed it in his own world, but when faced with the people that existed with this Mikkel, he had begun to piece a little bit of it together. Something important seemed to be missing from everyone, like the idea of doing good for goodness sake was an alien concept. Everyone seemed to be living for his or her own particular moment, not for the moments that would follow.

 

"You think we're bad people," Mikkel said easily, and Oliver shrugged again. He did not think them so much bad as broken. They were beat down and scared. "You think I'm a bad person."

 

"I think you made bad choices, but you didn't know. Maybe you thought they were good choices, maybe you thought they were the only choices. I don't think you ever intentionally made the bad choices." Mikkel squeezed Oliver's hand back, thinking about those words and what they meant. At the time he had thought that joining the American forces had been the right choice. He thought agreeing to the experiments would allow him to protect his loved ones, even the civilians, but it had turned out to be the wrong choice. He went AWOL, tried to go off of the drugs, tried to bring good from the bad by joining Molious and exacting his revenge systematically. In hindsight, though, Mikkel knew he was only punishing himself under the guise of making amends.

 

"I am a bad person, Oliver." He was not too sure why he said it, but Mikkel muttered it without any hesitation. Deep down that was how he saw himself: The Big Bad Wolf going after, not the innocent girl, but the other monsters in the forest. Oliver would not tell him that it was true since he was too kind, but Mikkel knew that that was exactly the case. He had destroyed just as many sheep as he had other wolves, and it was about time he got what he was due. He would get the death that should have been on him hundreds of times over -- put down like an animal.

 

Both men dropped the conversation for another length of time, and Mikkel had just begun to wonder if their deaths would ever come when he began to feel his mouth grow parched. He had not noticed before, but all over he felt the awkward stretching of skin, the scrape of his eyelids over his suddenly dry eyes. The dead had shown him that that had been the first stage, their water escaping back into the world-- their skin turning leathery, their eyes deflating, and their blood thickening. Soon they would hollow out, slowly be unable to draw breath. Their muscles would contract, and they would fall, and they would die. Mikkel tried to swallow, but no spit clung to his mouth or eased the dryness in his throat. However, he still drew breath.

 

“I know you never loved yourself, Mikkel. Not for a long time. I understand, I do. I don’t get it, I understand. But, Mikkel, I want you to know I love you.” Oliver had chosen the platonic version of love, the love spoken to friends, to family. Oliver confused him with the other Mikkel, but he could not feel uneasy about it because Oliver loved him despite his faults, despite the harsh treatment and rough words. Oliver was stronger than him, capable of so much more than he was, and it was a comforting thought. “I know they told you things, told you things about me, but they don’t really know everything. They don’t know I’m stubborn and can be really selfish when I want to be, and I’m going to save you, even though they want me to let you go.” Oliver had turned to look at Mikkel, really look at him hard and direct. The Presence had apparently opened up to him about their fate, had maybe even told him about what his role would be. Oliver, in those infinite seconds, had told them to go to hell. He was not a puppet, but a strong-willed man, and he would do everything in his power to do what he wanted to do, which was keep Mikkel with him. He did not care that this Mikkel was not his own. He wanted him nonetheless to survive their last moments. Oliver had tried to barter, to offer his own life in exchange, but it had fallen on deaf ears. There was no way around it, it seemed. They would both die to further whatever it was that the Presence wanted of them.

 

"Oliver, was there ever a time, a place, where you felt peace?" Mikkel asked slowly. He had ignored Oliver’s words, his self-assigned desire to save Mikkel. Mikkel did not need to be saved, did not even want to be saved, truth be told. He wanted to see the end of all of his own suffering and misery. He wanted the pain to finally be over for him. It was selfish, but it was the way things would be so long as Oliver did not try to intervene. He would need to talk him down.

 

"Yeah," The younger man whispered back, finally sounding as labored with death as Mikkel had. Clearing his throat, hoping that there was enough time to force out a few more words, Mikkel spoke again. It was strained and hoarse, but he had a few more things to say to Oliver, a few desperate words to try to ease that one moment. He had seconds to do one good deed, something not for him, but for the boy that clung to his hand with the first traces of fear he had shown that night. Mikkel’s thumb slowly traced Oliver’s knuckles in an attempt to soothe him.

 

"I want you to think about it, Oliver. I want you to never let go of it. Remember, that regardless of what happens after this, we'll be together. Even if it's not me, even if it's the other me, we will be together soon, and that is the reason that I'm not afraid of dying. You are the reason I'm not afraid." Blackness had come to Mikkel's vision. It did not hurt, did not alarm him, because even though he was sure his nerves had failed, that he had probably fallen face down on the roof because his equilibrium had finally been destroyed, he could still feel Oliver's pulse against his hand. He never knew if Oliver had said anything back to him because his hearing went, and slowly his brain began to as well. Slowly the blackness from his senses crawled over his consciousness, and Mikkel's final thought was of Oliver and his heartbeat that never wavered. It did not slow as Mikkel's did, and that gave him hope that he was right. As long as Oliver lived, Mikkel thought in the last second of his life, then it had all been worth it.


	17. Epilogue: Year Zero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 17 Warnings: Mentions of: Drug Use**
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> Quick Book Keeping Notes: All dialog in italics is spoken in English. All dialog in normal font is in Swedish or another language if specified.
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> See End note for author note concerning the story!
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> Mix done by the amazing MasterPenguin: [Click Here!](https://8tracks.com/masterpenguin/liberty-of-possession)  
> Song for Chapter 17 Epilogue: Year Zero: No Idea - All Time Low

Mikkel woke to a stiff neck and a hurting back. Hospitals were notoriously terrible places to sleep and he had not slept much anywhere else over the past week. Two nights he had been in a hotel room, but sleep had been rather far from his mind those days. Cat naps were basically all he had survived on for a week, and only they came when he was too tired to function. He was sure much more and his body would just give up on him, shut down and not start up again. He contemplated another cup of coffee as he cracked his neck and willed himself to resemble a human being once more.

 

Stifling a yawn behind his hand, Mikkel fished around next to the chair for his shoes. He did not always take them off, but he wanted to be comfortable, at least physically. He wanted give himself something that resembled relaxation, and though he did not feel one bit relaxed, it had been good to get his shoes off.

 

When Mikkel finally allowed himself to look at Oliver, look at the form of one of his best friends immobile on a hospital bed as he had been for a little over a week, Mikkel bolted upright with surprise. His shoes were forgotten as he caught sight of large brown eyes watching him with just a hint of humor.

 

"You look tired," Oliver quipped, voice raspy from disuse and dryness. Mikkel was on his feet without another second wasted, rushing to Oliver who was only a few feet away. His first instinct was to hug the young Swede, wrap him up tight in his arms and squeeze him. It was primitive, the notion that if one could touch something then it was there, but Mikkel thought better of it. Oliver had to hurt, and pulling him up and hugging him would not have been the best idea for the moment. Instead his hands hovered, entirely unsure of what he should do with them.

 

"I _… I seriously can't believe…_ " Mikkel started in Swedish, forgot the words, and forced the rest out in English. He had no time to be dwelling on how best to communicate with Oliver because his mind still reeled with the idea that Oliver was actually awake, actually speaking to him. " _Say something else. Please, anything!_ " Oliver chuckled, winced slightly, but forced a smile on his face.

 

" _You smell bad too,_ " He commented, and Mikkel could not even think to be offended by that. Oliver could think he smelled like a dairy farm in the middle of summer so long as he was actually awake.

 

" _Was at the rink,_ " Mikkel commented back, reaching up for the call button. The doctors would want to check on Oliver, would want to test him, and Mikkel had to call Oliver's parents. They were so worried, and Mikkel had to force them out of the hospital every night with the promise that he would sit there with Oliver while they slept. He had had to play that night, though his heart had not been in it, and rushed over as soon as it was done to relieve Oliver's family. They were grateful, and Oliver's mother would hug him every time.

 

" _There are showers at the rink_ ," Oliver reminded him, moving his own hand up to grab Mikkel's wrist before he had a chance to press the call button. Mikkel furrowed his brows, looking at Oliver with an unspoken question as to why Oliver did not want someone alerted to his return to consciousness. " _Not yet, please. Don't want to be poked more than already have been._ " Slowly Mikkel's face softened into a gentle smile, but Oliver did not let go of his wrist. He held on, like he was also checking if he was really awake, staring at where his fingers circled Mikkel's flesh.

 

" _I wanted to hurry back here, make sure you were okay. Didn't want to miss you waking up, Ollie._ " Oliver smiled again, softer, matching Mikkel's smile, the older man assumed. He realized quickly that he missed it. He missed Oliver smiling but more than that he missed Oliver smiling at him.

 

" _You fell asleep and missed it anyway,_ " Oliver reminded him, which made Mikkel chuckle lightly. He reached behind himself, hand finding the chair and pulling it closer so he could sit. He did not want to have Oliver stop holding onto him just so he could be comfortable, so he compromised, arm resting next to Oliver's as they both watched each other. It seemed Oliver was just as hesitant to believe Mikkel was there as Mikkel was to believe Oliver was awake, but they both seemed to be coming to terms with the fact that it was real.

 

" _I should call your parents,_ " Mikkel offered, shifting to reach into his pocket to slide out his cell phone. Oliver's grip on his arm tightened for just a fraction of a second, giving Mikkel pause with his phone held loosely in his hand.

 

"Not yet. I know they're worried about me, but… just not yet, okay? I just want a few minutes." It was Swedish, but Mikkel understood, nodding and smiling a little more in response. It was Oliver's call, all of it, and unless he passed out again, Mikkel would listen to whatever Oliver wanted. " _So, what happened?_ " The younger man asked, and Mikkel's smile slowly turned down. He was unsure if he should answer the question, unsure of the protocol if and when Oliver woke up. He had not asked which seemed to be short sighted on his part, so he weighed the options. There seemed to be no harm in telling Oliver what had happened, and Mikkel was sure, given the same situation, that he would want to know as well.

 

" _We went out and while you were crossing the road you were hit by a drunk driver._ " Mikkel did not smile, actually frowned a little, as he watched Oliver's features. He did not look too surprised over the news, actually a bit thoughtful as his eyes scanned around the room. Mikkel could not imagine that he was not in a ton of pain, but Oliver hid it well, looking almost nonchalant over the whole ordeal.

 

" _I died, didn't I?_ " He asked, which surprised Mikkel quite a bit. He frowned and waited several seconds for Oliver's eyes to find him again before he nodded. It had been the scariest moment of Mikkel's life, watching his best friend lay on the ground in a puddle of his own blood and clinging desperately to life. Oliver had looked so scared, blood burbling to his lips as he gasped to draw oxygen into lungs that had collapsed below broken ribs. He had died there right as the paramedics had arrived and Mikkel had been sure that he would never see Oliver awake again. He thought that one freak accident, one asshole running a red light with enough alcohol in his system to put him two times over the legal limit would take Oliver from him, but he had been wrong. Oliver was tougher than that.

 

" _Yeah, for a minute and twenty-six seconds you were dead, Oliver._ " Mikkel told him slowly, and Oliver's reaction seemed rather strange. He nodded once, just a small head bob, winced from the movement, and sighed. His hand tightened around Mikkel's wrist for just a fraction of a second before it went to just loosely holding on. Mikkel did not speak again for a good minute, but when Oliver's eyes closed again, he was spurred into speech.

 

"Hey, really don't think you're supposed to go back to sleep until a doctor comes in to check on you." Mikkel really hoped that Oliver had only decided to rest. He could not bear the thought of Oliver falling into unconsciousness again, leaving Mikkel to wonder if he had ever actually woken up at all or if it had all been a dream. Oliver's lips quirked into a smile again, though his eyes did not open right away.

 

" _Not going to sleep. My eyes just hurt a lot._ " Oliver commented, smiling still. " _Wake up and get to see you first. Wish it was a pretty girl._ " That got Mikkel chuckling, shifting to remove Oliver's hand from his wrist, lacing their fingers together instead.

 

" _You won’t let me call the pretty nurse in here, so I guess you're just going to have to suffer with only seeing me_ ," He quipped back which made Oliver chuckle and then groan. It hurt like hell to laugh, but at least Oliver could laugh. He could not remember laughing in quite a while.

 

" _I'd say you could put on a wig and maybe pretend to be a pretty girl, but you still stink and you haven't shaved in a while._ " Mikkel used his free hand to reach up and rub at his face. Oliver's eyes opened a crack to watch him touch over the long neglected beard. He smiled fondly at Mikkel and did not look away when caught doing so. Mikkel slowly smiled back and gave Oliver's hand a light squeeze.

 

"I'm glad you're okay, Ollie," He said, and it was the truth. His missed Oliver unbelievably and had not realized he could miss anyone as much as he had. Though they usually only spent approximately nine months out of the year with each other, Oliver had become a major part of his life. To have that taken away, Mikkel had rationalized, was literal hell.

 

"I missed you too, Boeds." Oliver commented back, smiling softly again as he flexed his fingers against Mikkel's hand. " _Being dead really sucks_." That was in fact very true. As he had woken, Oliver could not remember much of anything. There were large gaping black spots where memories should have been. Or, at least, he thought there should have been memories. As Mikkel had described it, Oliver could only barely remember the accident. He had remembered them winning the game, remember a bunch of them wanting to go out and celebrate. He could remember them parking and then walking. Honestly he could not remember being hit by the car, could not remember holding onto life as he lay in the street bleeding to death, nor could he remember being resuscitated, but that was not all.

 

"It's like I can't remember things. Like, things happened, important things, but I can't remember them." Oliver looked slightly distressed over that, anxious and just a tad panicked, but it never did surface more than that. He held it in, fought it down, and slowly turned his gaze up to look at Mikkel. The older man looked confused over Oliver's admission, as if looking for some way to comment on something he did not understand. He wanted Oliver not to worry, but had no real way to put the worries to rest.

 

"You were on a lot of drugs, Oliver: A lot of stuff to keep you comfortable, to keep you alive. I'm sure… I'm sure that would make you not remember stuff." Mikkel shifted slightly, his free hand looping over Oliver to pet his fingers through the younger man's hair. It was grimy, oily, and in desperate need of a good wash, but that did not deter Mikkel from the gesture. He wanted Oliver to know that he would be there for him through everything, even memory loss.

 

"No, not the drugs," Oliver said slowly, voice weak. The drugs had not made him forget, they had made him not feel. The memory loss was something else, something bigger, something black and all consuming. Oliver thought about that for a fraction of a second before his eyes shot open wide and his hands moved. The drugs, he thought, that made the black come. He pulled at the IV tubes, disconnecting them, roughly. Mikkel had jerked back, shocked over Oliver's sudden movement. The younger man fought to sit up, seemed to fight to get away, but Mikkel grabbed him and hit the call button without hesitation. Something in those fleeting seconds had happened to Oliver, had made him want to get away from the room, and Mikkel, though surprised, knew that would not have been good.

 

No army came into the room, just the nurse that had been watching over Oliver for practically the entire time he had been there. She was nice, pretty, and had done everything in her power to make both Oliver and his constant guests comfortable. One day Mikkel had jokingly asked her when she slept since she seemed to always be around. Though she had answered him with humor, Mikkel still thought that she never actually did sleep.

 

" _He's up. We were… we were talking and then, suddenly, he started…"_ The woman did not wait for Mikkel to finish explaining, gently stepping in to take his place in the restraining of Oliver. The younger man was strong, though, and Mikkel could not imagine that the petite nurse would be able to hold him down alone. Mikkel rationalized he would need to go get more help. He would need to alert someone that Oliver was awake and freaking out, and that one nurse would not be enough to restrain him.

 

" _Oliver,_ " She spoke slowly, using her weight to keep Oliver in bed, though not fighting him to get the tubes back in yet. " _Oliver, there is no Opal. There is nothing in these drugs but some pain medication, some antibiotics, and some nutrients. Oliver, do you understand me?_ " Oliver did, and though Mikkel did not understand her motives in talking to Oliver like that, he did understand the results. Oliver calmed, though not immediately, and shifted, staring at the woman. Mikkel would have thought that her simple beauty had surprised Oliver, much as it had Mikkel, but he did not look at her with reverence, staring instead with awe.

 

"M-Maria?" Oliver asked hesitantly, eyes wide and shifting to take in all of her features. Slowly the nurse smiled, her lips quirked just slightly as her features softened. She shifted back, letting Oliver eased down onto the bed once more. Mikkel hovered just to the side, attention darting between the two. Yes, the young woman's name was Maria, but there was no way Oliver could have known that. As far as he could tell they had never met while Oliver was conscious.

" _I… I remember you_ ," He told her, and though she smiled, she did not respond. Her attention went to reattaching the IV tubes that Oliver had disconnected, leaving Oliver to just watch her, and Mikkel to slowly collapse back into the chair with a heavy sigh. He was tired, rung out, and Oliver's sudden explosion had drained the last of his reserves. At least, with him awake again, Mikkel would be able to go home and get some sleep.

 

"She's been your _nurse_ , Ollie," He told the younger man gently, watching Oliver's attention dart to him before back to the nurse.

 

" _Yeah, no_ , I remember her from… from the other place!" He said with a mixture of excitement and mortification in his tone. He thought he had remembered, just a glimmer, but it seemed like they thought it was nothing. Like something he need not worry about. Oliver, however, knew it was something monumental that he needed to remember. It was something fleeting and dark which he just could not grasp, though he tried to desperately.

 

"Ollie," Mikkel started slowly, not so much a warning in his tone, but more of a gentle reminder. He had been seriously hurt, dead for almost a minute and a half, and things were probably very confusing to him right then. There was no reason to take that out on anyone, let alone those just trying to help him.

 

"No, Mikkel!" Oliver started, voice both excited and frustrated. "Why would she tell me there was no Opal in it if she didn't know? _Why would you say no Opal?_ " Oliver's attention went from Mikkel to Maria as he spoke, languages shifting as well. She knew about the Opal, Oliver knew about her. There had to be a connection, something in the lost memories that Oliver could use to figure out the rest. Instead of responding, Maria just looked up at him, smiled softly as if not understanding, and took the clipboard at the end of Oliver's bed. She began to mark things down instead of responding. Oliver frowned heavily and prepared to shout the question at her again when Mikkel caught his arm, squeezing once hard.

 

"Ollie, stop it. C'mon now, it's not like that. Maria's your _nurse_ and there was nothing else. It's just been here, Ollie. You just dreamt about her because she was around, alright? So just calm down a bit and relax." Mikkel made a very convincing argument, but Oliver's eyes pleaded with him. There was something that the younger man was desperate to remember, something that he knew he needed to remember, and Maria seemed to not want to be of any help. Oliver swallowed heavily, eyes shifting from Mikkel's face and back toward Maria's. He wanted one of them to believe him, wanted someone to tell him why he remembered bits and pieces from when he should have been unconscious. He wanted answers, but seemed to get none.

 

"When did she become my nurse?" Oliver asked with determination, eyes now directly on Maria, not letting her out of his sight. Mikkel at first seemed hesitant to tell him, though he did not know why. It was a simple question, one that should not have been worth anything. He just wanted to know when Maria had begun to take care of him.

 

"The second full day you were here, Ollie. The first night and the first day you had some other nurses, but then you had her and she's been here ever since."

 

"So, the fifteenth then?" Oliver asked cautiously, getting a confused look from Mikkel. There was nothing said between them for an expanse of time that felt like it would stretch until it broke. In a sense it did because as soon as Oliver got sick of waiting, he asked again. "Was it the fifteenth, Boeds? The fifteenth of November! Just tell me!"

 

"Yeah, Ollie, it was! Why… why would that matter?"

 

"Because she died on the fifteenth, Boeds! _Because you died there on the fifteenth!_ " Again Oliver's attention went from Mikkel to Maria, staring at her hard until, finally, the young woman dropped her attention from the notes she was writing to look back at Oliver. Her gaze was steady, a tiny bit cold, but Oliver held it without hesitation. They practically glared at each other for almost a minute before Maria finally smiled, one that happened slowly and blossomed across her face.

 

" _You died there, Maria, and now you're here. You died protecting me, and then he…_ " Oliver paused, glancing at Mikkel for just a moment. " _You sent Chief for me. You sent him to get me away from them, and he did. He did Maria, twice. He saved me, and you knew he would, didn't you?_ " The clipboard was discarded quickly, tossed onto the movable table that sat with a small pitcher of water on it, before Maria sat easily on Oliver's bed. She collected his hands and held them gently in her own, smiling the whole time.

 

" _I'm so sorry, Oliver, that I had to do that. We're not allowed to give you the answers, having to make sure you remember. We're under strict orders not to intervene with the newly selected because you're all still fragile._ " Oliver's brows crossed heavily, frowning deeply as he searched Maria's face.

 

" _You're… you're not one like me, are you_?" He asked, and Maria nodded. She was not a savior like Oliver was, not any more anyway.

 

" _More like your guardian angel, Oliver._ " She told him, and Mikkel was completely at a loss next to them.

 

" _His what?_ " He asked, but he could not get any more questions out because Oliver had let go of Maria's hands, turned, and pulled the older man into a tight hug. He winced and groaned slightly with the pain the action had caused him, but he wanted nothing else than to hug Mikkel at that moment. There was so much he would have to tell him, about everything he had seen and experienced in the other world, but none of it came to his lips. There would be time to tell him later, Oliver knew, but there was one thing that he really needed to tell him at that moment.

 

"They let me come back because all I wanted to do, Boeds, was see you again. There was another you where I went, but he was so different. He was not like you at all, and I really, really just wanted to see you again." Mikkel had no idea how to take that. Oliver had just woken up from a coma, had seemed confused and scared, and Mikkel was sure that was natural. Then suddenly, with only a small confirmation from Maria, Oliver turned it around to tell him that while he was supposed to be unconscious he was apparently somewhere else.

 

"Oliver, I don't…" Mikkel started, but Oliver shook his head, hair tickling under Mikkel's chin. He did not need to finish that train of thought because Oliver understood, apparently all too well.

 

"There's a whole lot I have to tell you!" He began, but he had nothing to follow it up with. There was so much, so many layers of it, but he could not pinpoint exactly where to start. There was always the option of starting at the beginning, on the street, but Oliver had learned so many things since. He had learned all about Molious and the Government, about the soldiers and the Berserkers, all of which seemed to be just as important. The Presence had told him that he was to save the world and, just like the story, Oliver had no clue where to start.

 

"I need to… I need to show you the stars, Boeds," Oliver said suddenly after moments of silence that no one seemed to want to intrude on. The older man looked at Oliver in confusion as he pulled himself from Mikkel's neck and looked up at him.

 

"The stars?" Mikkel asked, understanding the Swedish word, but not the meaning behind it. There seemed to have been no significance to the stars in anything that Oliver had rambled about, no connection to the history Oliver had apparently had while unconscious in the hospital, but there had to have been something.

 

"I made a promise, Mikkel, to the other you, that I'd make sure that you see the stars. That's when I'm going to explain everything, okay?" Mikkel nodded complacently. He did not believe it, not really, but he would give Oliver the chance to tell him about it. Mikkel owed him that much anyway.

 

"Alright, Ollie. When you show me the stars, you can tell me about what happened." The younger man beamed a smile up at him, having detangled himself and returned to the bed. Mikkel slowly smiled back, still a bit of worry on his features, and it fell entirely as he looked to Maria.

 

" _You should probably go and call his family, Mr. Boedker. I'm sure they'll love to see him._ " Nodding, Mikkel stood. He took Oliver's hand once more, squeezing it, before he turned to leave the room. As he did so he caught Maria's arm, giving her a light tug, a silent request for her to step out with him. With a gentle smile at Oliver, the young woman did so, closing the door to Oliver's room softly behind her.

 

" _What's wrong with him_?" Mikkel asked Maria, worry in his voice. Oliver had not gone anywhere, which Mikkel knew for certain. Every moment that Oliver was in the hospital there had been someone with him, leaving no time for this apparent grand adventure he had gone on. Maria slowly touched Mikkel's shoulder, smiling up at him with equal softness.

 

" _Go ahead and walk out to the front of the hospital, Mr. Boedker. Call his family and let him know he's awake. There you will get your answer._ " It was cryptic, confusing, but Mikkel could only nod. He had pulled his phone from his pocket, holding it tightly as he turned and began to walk out of the hospital.

 

Maria watched him go, letting Mikkel round the corner toward the elevators before she turned and reentered Oliver's room. The younger man was fighting with the bed, attempting to get the back to rise up so he could sit instead of lay. Moving quickly, Maria helped, working in almost silence until Oliver was comfortable. He was the first to resurrect the topic she had walked away from.

 

"Where’s Mikkel?" Oliver asked.

 

"I sent him out to get the proof he needs, _"_ Maria responded, getting a slightly annoyed sound from Oliver in return. She looked at him, assuring that he was not mad at her. He actually was mad at himself, mad about the mix up in his meanings.

 

"I meant _Chief_. When… when I died there he said he'd be with me. I didn't know what he meant." Oliver paused again, considered, and then continued. "I guess I still don't know what he meant." Maria smiled again, but did not answer right away. Instead she moved about the room, walking to the window where she drew the shades open, letting in the faint glow of early morning light. The sun had not yet risen, still below the horizon, but it turned the sky a cerulean blue.

 

"Well then, Oliver, I guess that's going to be your first mission here, isn't it?" The woman responded, tone slightly playful. It was far from the answer that Oliver wanted, but he knew that pressing her for more would not get him what he needed. He would need to find the other Mikkel himself, and though it would be tough, Oliver knew that he would somehow do it. The Presence had believed him capable of saving the world, so Oliver knew he would have to believe himself capable of finding the other Mikkel.

 

Oliver lolled his head toward the window, watching the sun turn the sky slowly. He had not lived through the night in the other world, but he had been brought back in his own to watch the sunrise. He had thought the Presence evil, destructive beings, but they had proven to also be forgiving, benevolent, and, most of all, honest. They had told Oliver he would see the sun rise, and he had.

 

Minutes seemed to drag on for eternity as Oliver watched the sky and waited for his friend and family to return to him. Slowly, however, Oliver began to sense something was wrong. He watched the sky and it took a little while before he saw it. There were no clouds in the sky, but from the light pollution of the city slowly emerged the Presence, the long flowing hand that he had seen on the street and then again during his dying night. The aqua translucence descended slowly, reaching both for the ground and to eternity, and then Oliver heard it.

 

Back then, in the other world, Oliver had never heard the Presence. He had sensed them, felt them, but he had never heard them speak words to him, all the languages of the world coming upon him at once in a monotone that still felt like more. Oliver breathed heavily but never became lightheaded as he took in the words and made them a part of him. He had a mission and he would have to work hard to accomplish it, but there was time. There was plenty of time.

 

As the voices left him and the grip of panic washed from his system, Oliver looked to Maria. She appeared entirely unfazed, calmly watching Oliver for any sign of physical distress. When their eyes met she smiled softly, letting Oliver make the first move.

 

"What did they mean?" He asked her with caution, and the smile never left her face.

 

"You'll know, _"_ Was her only response, and Oliver knew he could not press the subject. She was there only to protect him, not to help him accomplish what the Presence needed of him. He would need to make his own choices, and pray that they were the correct ones.

 

The door flew open and Mikkel ran into the room, approaching Maria quickly.

 

" _What was that?_ " He demanded of her, getting nothing but that enigmatic smile and head nod in Oliver’s direction in return. She would not tell him, but Oliver would.

 

"Tomorrow, Boeds, I'll explain it all," Oliver told him, and though unhappy with that response, Mikkel made his way back to his chair, sitting heavily before taking Oliver's hand once more. Curling in on himself, Mikkel laid his head on Oliver's hand and spoke quietly.

 

" _Alright. Alright, Ollie. After that, I think I'm going to believe just about anything you're going to tell me._ " Shifting, Oliver gently pet through Mikkel's hair, returning the soft affection he had gotten earlier from the older man. There was a lot he would need to explain, a lot he would need to figure out, but there was proof. Mikkel would believe him, and Oliver knew more than anything that that was exactly what he would need in order to help the Presence save their world. So long as Mikkel believed him, everything would work out just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone! This story has been a pet project of mine for quite awhile and it feels good to have it completed and out in the public. I hope that each of you have enjoyed it and that it met your expectations for such a long fiction.
> 
> I started the plot for this story back in 2008, and it has since haunted me. When the Year Zero ARG began in 2006 I thought it a very interesting vision of the future in which the earth is destroyed for the selfish desires of humanity. Though not far fetched, current world events have made other parts of the ARG even more prevalent. New concerns about global warming, cultural divides, racism, sexism, religious intolerance, and xenophobia drew me back to the plot I had designed as a compliment to the story told through both the ARG and the CD Year Zero.
> 
> Back in 2008, fresh in the adult world balancing full time jobs and college, I did not have the ability to really give justice to the themes approached (both very directly and occasionally subliminally) in the inspiring materials. I had not been exposed to ideas of different cultures enough, did not hear the plights of other races, had not met anyone put through ordeals that would rock the foundations of their world. I knew what I wanted to express, which was the evil of the world being thrust on normal people under the guise of it being good for them, but I did not know how. Even now I’m still woefully unqualified to write about suffering that I have not experienced, which is many of the ideas written in this story. I have not been through war directly, nor forced below the means of my birth class, but I wanted desperately to attempt to capture the emotions felt during those times.
> 
> All in all this story turned into a heavy collaboration of philosophical ideas, social and economical foreshadowing, and historical trending. This was both a look toward a possible future and, hopefully, a reflection of the flaws of our present. Sadly, in hindsight, I found a lot more I had wanted to add, and I’m sure a lot would change if I were to write this all again, but, as is, I hope it was as enjoyable for you to read as it was for me to stew over, lament, dread, and enjoy for the past 7 years.
> 
> Thank you all again, and if there are any questions, concerns, praise, dismissal, or hateful remarks, please leave them in the comments below!
> 
> Special thanks to my beta reader, friends, coworkers and confidants that not only forced me to write when, seriously, I wanted to read books or sleep, but also cheerleaded through this year of almost non-stop writing. Additional thanks to all those that helped me fact check! You guys are the best!


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